


The Carrier

by Rairora



Series: The Carrier [1]
Category: True Blood (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:41:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 40
Words: 94,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27355162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rairora/pseuds/Rairora
Summary: Be warned: it's not canon. I took Ms Harris' world and opened it up - grounded it in my own parameters and added to it. Does this open and land immediately in Bon Temps? Nope, it does not but give me a couple of chapters and we'll land there with a bang.- - -With life in the Vampire US returning to normal, the vampires of Europe are travelling to petition their undead brethren across the American states with a radical proposition. Pulling out all stops, the Empress of Europe and an entourage consisting of the Old World's once-feared vampire-hunting families and the European Empress' most prized Carrier - a human whose blood retains taste - travel to New Orleans in the hope of persuading the Americans to agree to her charter.But things don't go as expected. A missing vampire and a misplaced human threaten to upset her best-laid plans.
Relationships: Eric Northman/Original Female Character(s), Eric Northman/Pam Swynford De Beaufort/Other(s)
Series: The Carrier [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2064453
Comments: 36
Kudos: 53





	1. Prologue

I cleared my throat and looked into the footlights. Beyond, I could see the pale smudges of vampire faces. Shuffling my notes, I looked out into the darkness of the Dallas auditorium and began.

"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for coming this evening and taking the time to hear what we have to say. I am Magdalena Kennick. As I am sure many of you will have noted, I am not vampire. If you were turned in Europe or have attained a certain vintage -"

I thought I heard a snicker and I was heartened.

"-or, more specifically, if you were turned before the Second Council in 1947, you may recognize my name as one of the Five Families. For those of you who don't know who we are, the Five Families are the Kennicks of the Irish Isles, the Ardelean clan of Romania, the Romarros of the Peninsulae, the Jägers and the van Helsaig of the central lands."

I took a breath. I had a feeling I was preaching to the converted, but the Irish vampires had told me that many of the young Americans had no idea who we, the Five Families, were. They'd never had to dodge our stakes or silver bullets. They only knew us from TV shows and blockbuster films - or, rather, knew a far sexier and more interesting version of what we were.

I continued:  
"Originally these families, and I'm sorry to say mine included, were known to vampires as ruthless hunters and killers who staked hundreds of vampires under orders from the Catholic Church. However, by the time the Great Council was called in London in 1667, a truce had been called between the Five and the vampire authorities. In exchange for protection, the Five Families became vampire allies. They no longer focused on large-scale vampire killings, but rather on selective culling, based on rulings passed by the Great Council. Initially they started by reducing vampire populations in regions where numbers had risen dramatically, often in connection with famine, disease or revolution. In time, however, the vampire authorities sought to control their own, but many members of the Five Families stayed on as advisors or arbitrators. After the Second Council, we largely took a step back and nowadays our families nowadays mostly work behind the scenes for the vampire duchies across Europe."

I paused for breath and looked out blindly. I could not tell whether they were listening or had simply gone into vampire stand-by mode. The silence told me nothing.

I drew breath, one of the few beings in the hall needing to do so, and continued, "I understand that a term like 'the Five Families' means little to many of you in this wonderful country. For some of you, the Five Families might be a throwback to a less pleasant part of your personal history. In fact, I'm sure a number of you came here specifically to get away from us."

There were no laughs. I had held this speech a dozen times and there was never even a chuckle. I sighed inwardly and lowered my voice to become more serious.

"We are aware that our being here - the Council of the Empire of Europe and Northern Africa, along with representatives of the Five Families - might be construed as interference in American vampire affairs. Please be sure assured that this is far, far from the case. We are here because we believe that the Vampire Charter is something that vampires everywhere, all over the world, in every territory, kingdom or empire must agree to. Its purpose is not to restrict the power of individual rulers, but to ensure that all vampires have the same rights to the dignity of person as humans do. Humans have the UN Charter of Human Rights. It is time there was a universal Charter of Vampire Rights."

When I had first practised my speech in front of a mirror, I had paused for the rousing applause that I thought would come.  
None ever came.   
The reactions ranged from awkward chair-shuffling to the fake clearing of the throat that some vampires were still wont to do out of habit, even if they physically had no need.  
I bit my lower lip then smiled brightly into the footlights.

"But I am not here to tell you about the Charter, my job is to introduce the vampires who have been instrumental in drawing it up. My task as a representative of the Five is to underline our full support for this movement and it is our hope that we can persuade you to get behind it as well. For this reason, I will thank you for your attention and introduce to you, with the greatest of honour, to our Empress, Moya of Europe."

I stood back and bowed low, as I had been instructed, to the Empress as she ascended the podium and then took my seat beside the old Transylvanian Tomas Ardelean. 

The Empress and I had smiled when I'd practised it, but she'd nonetheless been the one who insisted that I do it. Protocol was protocol after all, and she had only been Empress for three years – she needed to assert her authority a little bit more.

She winked at me in passing, the briefest flicker of her eyelid. 

As she looked over her notes with the eerie, silent calm that vampires possess even at the most stressful times, the screen behind her silently lit up. As I took my seat I saw Stephen, responsible for tech support throughout the tour, click the mouse of his laptop, preparing her Power Point presentation to go. We had done this all over the United States, it had long since become routine. 

Nonetheless I looked for his boss and my godmother Ilaria by his side and waited to get her thumbs up before I could relax. Both of their faces were focused on the Empress, watching her intently. Moya Kennedy was a brilliant orator. If anyone could persuade the American vampire population to sign up for the Charter of Vampire Rights, then it was her.

Or that, at least, is what we had thought when we began; it was proving far more difficult than we thought. 

She gave her speech, she showed the slides with the statistics about vampire population, procreation and control, then she outlined the main points of the Charter and the extent of its potential influence … and power.   
As on every stop of our tour so far, this part did not go down well.   
Vampires in the New World had been used to an almost tribal system of government, whereby each state or area had generally been almost self-governing. They'd had a Vampire Authority which had essentially spent decades trying to rein its wayward vampires in, before it had ultimately imploded. The United States had many kings, queens and councillors, but was without a single leadership figure or High Council, and it looked like they liked it that way. 

Now this Charter was suggesting a unified method of government worldwide, with a global Council for Vampire Affairs and a universal charter. The American vampires, we were discovering, were not impressed.

Up until now, our vampire audiences had been cautious about revealing how they felt. They'd listened politely, out of respect, and saved their curiosity, criticism or bile till the Q&A at the end. To my surprise, a lot of the American vampires were wary of an authority – any authority. Ultimately, our vampire audiences knew they would have the right to vote on the issue, so maybe that's why we'd never encountered open resistance or rebellion.   
Up until now in Dallas.

When Moya finished, she paused and looked around the silent auditorium – they never clapped, that was nothing new – and waited for the first question. And when it came she was not pleased.  
"Cui bono?" came the shout. "Imperatrix! Cui bono?"  
It was in Latin, the traditional language of vampire affairs in the empire she now ruled, a sign that the vampires listening disapproved of this new Empress and her temerity.  
"Cui bono?" sounded the echo of vampire voices across the room.  
"Imperatrix! Cui bono?" - Empress! Who benefits?  
More and more voices took up the cry, till the room resonated with the chant, "Cui bono? Cui bono? Cui bono?"

It frightened me, the atmosphere was suddenly threatening, ugly. 

We, the other members of the Five Families, looked at Tomas Ardelean for help. He was the only one of us with any experience of these big vampire gatherings: he'd attended a few in his eighty or so years.

"We leave now," he said in his gravelly voice, standing up, his gnarled hand firmly around the top of his walking stick. "Before they drain us."

He exited, with the four of us close behind.   
When I looked back, the Empress was still standing behind the podium, her hand raised to silence the crowd, but they were ignoring her.   
What we had long suspected now seemed to be true: the American vampires were not keen on the idea of the Charter.   
Not at all.


	2. II

My family has always had connections to the vampire community in Dublin – in fact, a number of my older relatives had worked with the former Emperor or worked in some capacity for the European vampire council.  
I'd spent my childhood attending vampire ceremonies with my parents or grandparents: the crowning of some little prince here or some princess there. Lots of pomp and ceremony and far too much Latin. All of the old rituals were performed in the language that had once been the _lingua franca_ of Europe's churches and its undead. 

I'd visited my grandfather at work in the archive of the Vampire Headquarters in Dublin and in my teens had a summer job helping my Uncle James sort the thousands of index cards that contained information about the vampire residents in the territory of the old Emperor, Charles. The vampires were always friendly towards me, they liked to stroke my hair and smell my skin. Some of them dropped fang on request, so I could stare baldly at their mouths, fascinated and repulsed in equal measure.

I'd never shown much interest in vampire administration as a career choice; in fact, when I was old enough to make my own choices, I'd preferred to steer clear of them and go about my life pretending I never knew they existed, pretending that my godmother Ilaria just looked remarkably good for her age (and, to be fair, she did: she'd been turned in the Dark Ages) and pretending that the whole 'Twilight' and 'Vampire Diaries' craze was a huge lark.  
Even after the Great Revelation, I managed to make all the right noises: _Imagine! Vampires! Living among us! Gasp!_ etc., but I still saw no need to step into the family business and become _au fait_ with their affairs. 

It wasn't for want of trying on their part. At every family occasion Ilaria bemoaned my decision to turn my back on my "true calling".  
As one of the Five Families and a carrier as well, I would've found myself a nice vampire companion or mate and worked my way up their very lucrative career ladder – vampires reward loyal humans very handsomely. They need us more than we need them and they acknowledge it with a fat pay check and a job for life.

Instead, I got a job as an archivist at one of Ireland's National Museums – my history degree and a postgrad in librarian studies kind of make that an ideal job, boring and all, though it may sound. I met a nice man with a beating pulse and we got married. We bought an expensive house in one of Dublin's suburbs at the height of Ireland's economic boom … and settled down into domestic bliss.

Except that five years later, my marriage was in ruins, my job had been cut back to part-time and I was living in a house that was worth half of what we paid for it and was being sold out beneath me, as per the terms of our split. All of my belongings were stowed carelessly in a collection of large packing boxes and my husband was living with his new lover in their city-centre lovenest, while I dealt with an angry bank that was wondering why we were defaulting on our enormous mortgage. 

I threw myself into my work till I could stand it no more, till the effort of pretending to be normal was too much to bear.

Finally, I took sick leave from work and just cried for two days.  
I cried into every tissue in the house, then all the toilet rolls I had, kitchen towels and finally resorted to a bath towel. I just lay on my bed with it tucked under my chin to catch the sundry bodily fluids cascading down my face with my wails.

On the third day I crawled out of bed at dusk.  
I took a shower and walked to the local supermarket (I was in no fit state to drive a car), each small step causing me such heartbreak that I had to lean against the wall of the car park to simply swallow the pain before I went in to buy a litre of milk and a loaf of bread. Then I trudged home. 

I was struggling to find the key of the front door in my pocket, and struggling even harder not to start crying – why was everything so hard? Why were my keys hiding on me? Why was I stuck outside my front door in the cold and rain? – when a hand tapped me on my shoulder. I turned with a gasp and found myself face to face with Ilaria.

"Child," she said.

And then I did start to cry.  
I let the plastic bag with my few meagre groceries fall to the ground and she pulled me in close.  
She has no physical warmth but to me she has a smell – not the smell of her shampoo or perfume, but the smell of her skin. It's the smell of the warm dust of somewhere foreign, where cardamom or curry particles mix with the air that warms in the midday heat. No wonder, as she was turned in Morocco many centuries ago. I can smell the North African air from her still-smooth skin. It's a talent neither she nor most other vampires appreciate, as though my ability to smell some part of their past, of who they were, allowed me special access to their secrets.

Ilaria fished my keys out of my pocket – there they were, naughty keys – and led me inside.  
She'd lived in Ireland long enough to know how to make a decent cup of tea and when to offer one, so within minutes I was sitting in front of a hot mug, the milk was uncapped and I had a slice of toast on a plate in front of me. I poured milk in my tea and told Ilaria the whole sorry story, even though she'd heard it all before from my mother. In fact, it was my mother who'd insisted that Ilaria talk to me.

"There's a huge vampire congress in New Orleans just before Christmas," Ilaria said.  
God, Christmas. It was only September. I didn't even want to think about Christmas – my first Christmas as a single woman.  
The tears started to rise in me again.

"It will be the biggest vampire congress since the Great Council in 1667. We're trying to get the world's vampires to agree to a code of conduct, a charter, that will ensure that councils, authorities, empires and kingdoms will agree to a certain set of basic rules to eliminate some of the mediaeval practices that are unfortunately still commonplace."  
"Such as?" I asked, hugging my mug of tea. 

I was trying to concentrate on Ilaria and not think about last Christmas: the tree, the laughter, the jokes about maybe having a little one at Christmas next year, visits from Santa Claus, Christmas lists -  
_Shutupshutupshutup_ I said to my mind.

"Such as de-fanging," Ilaria said. "Officially, for example, it is frowned upon in the United States, but individual states practice it freely, while others have banned it. It's rampant in South America but forbidden in Canada. Or culling: some countries carefully monitor vampire numbers and authorities take it upon themselves to cull younger vampires if a certain number is exceeded."  
"Cull?"

Ilaria made a fist and thumped herself in the chest.  
I understood instantly.  
We humans might drag a finger across our neck to show that we meant decapitation, but vampires imitate a stabbing to show they mean being staked.

"Widespread culling," she said.  
"That's barbaric."  
"Exactly. So our new Empress has managed to achieve the near impossible: we will will present our charter representatives of the major global territories. But before we do so, we need to go on a little public relations tour in the United States. The Empress sees us visiting each and every kingdom to talk to the vampires personally and show them why this charter is vital to our survival."  
"Why do you need to go to every state in the US?" I wondered.  
"Because the US has the largest vampire population in the world. If the American vampires get behind it, the others will follow suit. We have planned a six-week tour of the continental United States for this very purpose."  
She looked very proud of herself.  
"And why do you need an archivist at this glam-fest?" I asked.

Ilaria _ahemed_ delicately and twisted one of her rings.  
"Actually," she said, "we need you there as a Kennick."  
"I'm a Kennick in name only," I said. "You know I don't do the whole Five Families deal."  
Ilaria gave me a sharp _don't-be-naughty_ look and I withered under her gaze.

"This will be the biggest public relations campaign we have ever undertaken. The Empress would very much like a member of each of the Five Families to be present, showing their support. She has engaged Tomas Ardelean, Petro Romarro, Hans-Peter Jäger and Sonja van Helsaig. She kindly requests that you be there, too."

There was a lot to process in there. The Empress had no dominion over me, _per se_. She wasn't my empress. She could request all she wanted. However, she was the employer of half-a-dozen of my relatives and contributed handsomely to my grandfather's pension.

"Why not James?" I asked, referring to my uncle James, who worked at the vampire headquarters in Dublin.  
Ilaria pulled a face. "Really?" she asked. "James? _Really?_ "

James was in his fifties. He'd never got married and still lived with my grandmother, whose last act every morning before he left the house was to make sure he'd put his clothes on properly and combed his hair. He was not exactly the man you'd want to roll out on a campaign to influence others.

"You're good-looking," Ilaria said – which was a blatant lie.  
She was always sighing over my wayward red hair and my Kennick inability to ever look anything but slightly dishevelled. See, my grandmother had good reason to check Uncle James before he went to work. We always manage to look slightly scruffy.

"No, really, you're pretty," (She stumbled over that lie. I am … interesting. My soon-to-be ex-husband used to say I looked like a leprechaun's daughter: freckled and cheeky. This is not 'pretty' in most people's books.) "You're the best orator we have from the Families; the empress went to see you speak at the historical society's evening about the Civil War and she was very impressed. You're young, you're clever. And you're a carrier."

Aha. There it was.

Ilaria was twisting her diamond ring more rapidly now.  
"I won't beat about the bush, Maggie. We all know you're a carrier and the Empress would like to talk to you specifically about …" – she bit her lip – "Harnessing your talent."

Let me digress here for a moment.  
My family's desire to annihilate – and later align themselves with – vampires stemmed not from an intrinsic desire to wipe out the undead. Rather, they were forced into a position of aggressive self-defence by their ability to 'carry' taste in their blood. Apparently, we taste of what we've eaten, which makes us quite delicious to vampires when we've gorged ourselves on sweet things and alcohol. 

Not surprisingly, we embrace world cuisines with high levels of garlic, as we can be just as repulsive to vampires after a nice plate of gyros or a big, fat döner kebab. It's not an all too common ability, apparently, so the Five Families have pretty much kept it to themselves and their extensive network of distant relations. Hence the term 'carrier' and the Empress' bright idea to use my delicious blood for some kind of publicity purposes.

"Ilaria," I said sternly. "What are you going to suggest? That I come along as some kind of marketing gag?"  
Ilaria was appalled. "You've met the Empress!" she said. "You surely don't think she would suggest something like that!"  
I have met her.  
She's lovely.  
She would never suggest something like that.  
I felt bad for suggesting it.

"She would like to book you for three feeds and ten vials of blood. She will pay you handsomely. The feeds will be contracted five-minute feeds to American vampires in strategic positions. Nothing less than the rank of king, queen or high councillor. The vials of blood will be taken here in Dublin and presented as tribute to less strategic vampires. Again, nothing less than the rank of king, queen or high councillor. This is her promise."

Her reassurance that my blood would be given to high-ranking vampires was a sign of respect.  
Or, rather, _Respect_.  
Vampires are all into that - rank, hierarchy, tribute, and general cap-doffing.

Ilaria produced a single sheet of paper from her handbag.  
On it was an itemized list of all of the duties expected of me on their six-week US tour, including the three feeds and the blood.  
I skimmed through it.  
Public talks at vampire conferences, a meet-and-greet at the vampire senate in Louisiana. Some general day work.  
The total amount that would be due to me was breathtaking. It was a golden door to a new life, out of debt and into an apartment of my own.

"Think it over," Ilaria said. "You'd be travelling as my companion and with members of the other Families. You'd have a full vampire and human security detail at all time. Top hotels, seeing more states in the US than most Americans even do in their lifetimes. It is an incredible chance, Maggie."

"Just three feeds?" I repeated. "Can I refuse if I want?"  
Ilaria winced. "It would be impolitic, but I am sure we could find a compromise."  
I took the piece of paper and the contract she'd also pulled out of the bag.  
"I'll read it over tonight and let you know tomorrow," I said.

x x x

That night I tossed and turned. I read and re-read the contract. I looked at the list of duties and obligations.  
I read the contract again.

I signed it at 4.30 a.m. and texted Ilaria.  
At 5.12 in the morning, the doorbell rang and I opened it to find a small, wizened vampire at the door.  
Wordlessly, he took the contract and tipped his hat at me.  
I watched him walk through the sleeting rain to get to his car and drive away.  
Then I had breakfast and packed.


	3. III

III

Pamela de Beaufort had been with her maker for a little more than a century but she'd never seen him quite like this before.  
If he were still human, she would assume he was suffering from burn-out.  
But he was vampire and Pamela wasn't certain whether vampires burnt out; in her experience, they just burnt up. 

She loved Eric Northman more than anything else, living or dead, that walked the earth, but part of their ability to stay within each other's orbit over the course of a hundred years was their conscious decision to get away from each other when their relationship stated to chafe. Thus, Eric had spent the late nineteen-thirties and most of the forties in Europe, while Pamela had wound bandages for the troops and knit for victory in the comfort of her Californian nest. Few knew how adept she once had been at turning a heel on a knitted sock … but Eric was stressing her so damn much, she felt like picking up her needles again, to knit herself into a meditative state.  
Or stab him with them.  
She was unsure which.

They'd sold their stakes in the artificial blood business when it became clear that Eric had no real long-term interest in being at the helm of an enormous company. He didn't need the money; he wasn't keen on the publicity; he loathed the hassle. 

For her part, Pam had found running Fangtasia just irritating enough to endure, but running a company hundreds of times bigger than her little Shreveport business made her skin crawl. All of the whiny humans and the greedy vampires.  
The meetings, the presentations, the palm-pressing, the politics, the _smiling_.   
Ugh.  
"I don't need the money," she'd said to Eric. "I don't know why I'm putting myself through this shit."

And he'd laughed, but ultimately agreed to pack it in with her.   
Pamela returned to Shreveport because the idiot she'd put in charge of Fangtasia had all but run it into the ground. Not that she was that attached to the shithole, she'd assured her maker, but she'd invested her precious time and good money into the place and she would not have her name associated with a bar that went bankrupt for sheer lack of business.   
Oh no.   
Pamela had plans to move into high-end events management and it would not look good on her resume if her first bar had nosedived into insolvency.

Eric had parted ways with her and left for Europe: he wanted to visit his estate in Sweden and was thinking of selling his vineyard in France. By the time he left, they'd both had their fill of each other and knew some time apart would do their relationship the power of good. Pamela had driven him to Dallas airport and waved him off, feeling a little bit sad and regretful. She expected to see him in a decade or so – he would come back when he'd had his fill of Swedish winters and Scandinavian blood.

Then one evening, thirteen months later, she let herself into Fangtasia before opening hours and found him behind the bar, drying glasses.  
"What are you doing here?" she'd cried.  
He looked at her as though she were mad.  
" _Det är min bar,_ " he answered curtly.   
It was his bar, after all – why shouldn't he be there?   
Pamela followed him around, asking questions: had something happened in Sweden? Was he all right? Why had he returned so early?  
" _Varför inte?_ " he answered. Why not?  
Pamela sighed. He usually returned from Sweden with linguistic short-term memory loss: his English seemed to have fallen out of his ears.  
Pamela stared at him but he avoided her gaze, straightening bottles on the shelf and lining up the glasses. Eric Northman liked things neat.  
"I felt like it," he shrugged.  
He was unusually elliptical, even by Northman standards.  
Pam gave up.

Eric's return was not easy.   
Pamela had made changes to the bar that he didn't like. She had found and hired an interior designer who had overhauled a vampire bar in New York and she liked his style. The designer had made mood boards and 3D plans, which Pamela excitedly showed to Eric so he'd understand Rae's 'vision'.  
"It's a nod to 17th century French shabby chic," she said excitedly. "But with a Gothic twist."  
"Bullshit," he said. "I lived through the 17th century and it looked nothing like this. Not happening."  
"It is happening," Pam fumed. "The contracts have been signed. I run this bar now, Eric, so this is happening."

She expected it to erupt into one of their loud, blistering rows.  
Ginger, standing on the sidelines, looked from one to another in trepidation: she'd been witness to a lot of shouting matches and generally knew when to scuttle to safety in one of the back rooms.

But Eric just shrugged. "Ok. Whatever," he said.  
"Is he all right?" Ginger whispered as Eric walked off across the bar with his long, loping strides. "It dudn't seem like him to just give up."  
"Of course he's all right, you idiot," Pam snapped – more to reassure herself than Ginger. The barmaid shrugged.  
"If you say 'whatever', so help me: I'll drain you, Ginger!"  
Ginger just shrugged again.

It took her another six months to turn the bar around, but by the time October approached, Fangtasia's takings were up 40% on the previous year.   
Pamela was proud of herself – and justifiably so, she felt. She'd practically carried the entire turnaround on her shoulders: Eric drifted in and out of the place like a ghost. His only interest was in counting the takings, and even that interested him purely as a matter of habit. He liked to tally things up and set their books straight. Everything else that was connected to his position – the supplications, the enforcing of authority in his area, the liaising with the Louisiana queen or other sheriffs – was of so little interest to him, that it was chiefly left for Pam to do. 

She asked him when he intended to leave again, presuming his lack of interest was a signal that his stay in Shreveport was temporary.  
But he only shrugged and said he didn't know.  
She asked him why he didn't consider starting another company or moving to a new country, but he just hmmmed and turned his back.  
He was clearly not happy to be there but seemed reluctant to leave. He was like someone at the end of a gangplank: he would not jump until he was pushed.

Sick of it, she confronted him one night in his office. He was lying back in his chair, slumped down behind his desk, like a schoolboy in a lesson he particularly loathed.  
"Does this – " Pamela waved her hand to encompass all of his long-legged lethargy – "have anything to do with that Stackhouse bitch? You're not still pining over her, are you? Get over her, already. She's married and has a bun in the oven."  
"It's not about her, Pam," he answered sharply. "My time with Sookie was …"

Pamela waited.  
"...interesting. And I won't deny that hers was the best blood I've ever had and am ever likely to taste again, but – no, that's over."  
"Are you sure?" she demanded. "Because I can't take any more of your moping. I'll have her human killed if that makes you happy. Say the word and it will be done if it shakes you out of – "  
She waved an expressive hand again "– _this_."

Eric stood up. "Pamela," he said, "I've long since made my peace with Sookie Stackhouse. You were right: a relationship with – what did you call her? - 'an uneducated, unsophisticated Bon Temps waitress' had no future. Is that what you want to hear?"  
It was, actually. Eric rarely admitted she was right, but Pamela couldn't enjoy the victory.  
"So what do you want?" she demanded.  
"I don't know," he said and his voice contained a note of strain that she'd never heard before. "I don't know, Pam. It's all so tiring. I'm just tired. I just can't bear the thoughts of decades more of this."  
Instinctively, she knew what this was. Not the bar, not Fangtasia.   
_This_ was the sheer effort of existing.

Pamela moved slowly to his desk, expecting him to wave her off in dismissal. Instead, he continued to stare at the tips of his shoes. She perched on the edge of the desk beside him and leaned her blond head against his.  
"What is it, my maker?" she asked softly. "What do you feel?"  
His answer chilled her through to her unbeating heart.  
"I feel nothing," he said finally. "Just nothing."  
He looked up at her and shrugged.


	4. IV

I told my parents and my employer that I was taking a six-month sabbatical.  
I felt energized by the prospect and bargained with the Empress, through Ilaria, to receive an advance on my payment, which I deposited in my account to cover my share of the mortgage and any costs arising during the sale of our house.  
Ah, yes.  
Our house. 

I rang my ex-husband, Seán, and told him I was going to America to work with vampires. I might as well have told him that I was going to Mars to work with unicorns.  
"America?" he said incredulously. "As in, the United States of?"  
"Yes," I said with a touch of pride.  
No more moping around for me. Gone were the days when I salted my cornflakes with tears and was a stranger to personal hygiene. I was back on track: I had a wonderful job opportunity working with the vampiric Empress of the European and North African Territories.

I felt fantastic: empowered and positive. And then I started Vampire Bootcamp at their headquarters in Dublin and felt like I was ten years old again.

That's not what they called it, of course, but I nonetheless had to attend a two-week 'familiarization course' with the other members of the Five Families so we could be fed the official line on the European Vampires' campaign. It was held in the Vampire Council's in Dublin, on the other side of the city from my overpriced house. I'd been in the building so many times, with my parents and grandparents, and had never quite shaken the feeling that the place was a bit magic. On the outside, it looked like one of Dublin's many Georgian buildings, but on the inside it had been extended on all levels and out the back of its extensive garden to accommodate all the vampires' business, like a rabbit warren of light-tight rooms.

I met Pietro Romarro and Hans-Peter Jäger again, both of whom I had last seen at the old Emperor's commemoration service, after he had met his untimely death.  
The other two Fives were both in my Uncle James' age-group: Pietro was small and thin, with delicate pianist-fingers, while Hans-Peter looked like the Bavarian forester that he was. He had a large, round tummy and wore a thick, woollen Loden jacket in the traditional southern German style. He confessed to me that he no longer liked doing any official Five Families business, especially the sort that involved travelling to multiple big cities on a far continent. I loved to speak to him, he had a gentle German accent that rose and fell.  
Oh, and he called vampires 'wampires'.  
I was entranced.

"Since many years now I work in the woods, in the nature," he said earnestly. "Zis wampire business is not for me."  
"Then why did they ask you?" I wondered.  
"I am the only one left," he said sadly. "My shildren are at the university or in the work. My son is a carrier, like me, but he hates the wampires. When the Empress called me, she remembered me that my family owe the wampires for their help far back in the 1960s, back when I was just a boy. But it is no matter, it is my duty to pay back this favour."

And he looked a little sad. I don't blame him. The Empress – her name was Moya Kennedy back before she was voted the supreme ruler of vampire life across Europe and the north of Africa – was a very sweet and charming lady with a will of iron and a long memory. I was absolutely certain that she had a long mental list of everyone who owed her and the Vampire Council of Europe a favour or a tribute.

I liked to sit beside Sonja van Helsaig, who was in her mid-thirties and just a few years older than me. She was a lawyer in Amsterdam and had been working in vampire affairs for years.  
We were both quite in awe of the fifth member of our little group, Count Tomas Ardelean, who was in his late eighties. He'd lived through a period behind the Iron Curtain when one of his tasks was actually to stake vampires for the Soviet Vampire Council. He walked with a cane and usually sat with it between his legs, so he could cross his hands over its ornate knob and rest his forehead out of sight behind them.

I quickly understood why I had been invited along.  
Pietro was cranky and temperamental. Hans-Peter got flustered when he had to speak to a group of more than three people. Sonja was brisk and to the point, but her voice was nasal and she was not a natural orator. Tomas Ardelean simply said nothing. I, on the other hand, was happy to speak to anyone so it seemed to be an accepted fact that I would be the group's public speaker. 

We had lectures about vampire history, lectures about the current state of affairs in the United States, Central and Southern America, and Asia. We were shown photos and given biographies of all the leading vampires would meet on our tour of the US. The itinerary was revealed; we were each given certain tasks that we would have to take on in the three weeks between the end of the tour at the beginning of December and the start of the Congress on the 20th of that month. I was to coordinate the arrival of the British, Irish, Icelandic and Scandinavian delegates, which pleased me greatly. I knew many of them by name or sight already.

We were also assigned vampire companions.  
At least, the Empress called them companions but we all knew they were minders. Ilaria was mine – no surprises there – and with her came her secretary, Stephen.  
I had always liked him. He was German, like Hans-Peter, and made an effort to put the older man at ease.  
Stephen was kind that way. He was generally a nice guy. The kind of man you'd probably see behind the desk at your local bank or insurance office. He had been in his early forties when he was turned, he had short brown hair and kind grey eyes. He was attractive in the kind of way that surprised you – you know, when you've known someone for some time and you suddenly realize that they're actually not bad.  
As in: quite comely.  
That's it: Stephen was a comely vampire. 

When he met me, he appraised me from head to toe, leaning in a millimeter or two to get my smell. I didn't hold it against him: vampires find us carriers a curiosity and, like men who don't realize they're staring at your chest, they tend to move closer than they intend to when we're first introduced.  
But Stephen checked himself and looked embarrassed, quickly drawing back with a quiet apology.

He was a perfect foil for Ilaria: where she was quick and tended towards snap decisions, he was thoughtful and deliberate. Although, officially, he was her secretary, it quickly became clear that he was more than that. Ilaria's official role was one of the Empress' two personal assistants and, in turn, Stephen was hers, but he was senior to the other assistant's assistant by virtue of his vampire age. I found it still very confusing but the vampires seemed to have an innate concept of hierarchy that allowed them to instantly gauge where they stood in the pecking order.

Where Ilaria was magnetic and charming, while he always seemed a little humourless and stiff. Stephen seemed to struggle slightly with the newest technology, gingerly prodding his mobile, while Ilaria carried a smartphone like a weapon. Anything unfamiliar to her in this new life was promptly Googled. She also had an extensive Pinterest account and an array of artsy photos on Instagram that were filtered to the point of unreality. 

We completed the bootcamp – sorry, familiarization course – and I was disappointed to learn that we would not be getting a certificate. 

When I suggested it, tongue in cheek, it was met with po-faced perturbation by all of the vampires present, except Stephen, that is. He grinned at me silently and gave me a quick wink, my co-conspirator. I shook hands with the other Fives and was about to say goodbye to Stephen and Ilaria, when she took me by the elbow and steered me out of the room. I was called in to have a private audience with the Empress.  
"Behave yourself now," Ilaria whispered. "Stop demanding certificates and grades."  
Ilaria does not appreciate my sense of humor. She pushed the door open and me inside with a gentle hand on my back.

Moya stood up when I came in.  
She was quite small and her hair had started to grey before she was turned, just a few wisps at her ears and temples. It made her age hard to estimate: she had probably been old by her era's standards, maybe in her late thirties, but she didn't look young by ours, either. She had a face that could've been a decade older or younger, which had probably contributed greatly to her survival over the centuries. 

She hugged me close but held her head stiffly away, trying not to smell me. She was very respectful that way; I liked her for it. In fact, I liked her generally: many of the vampires griped that she was too authoritarian, an iron fist in a velvet glove, but I knew that she was motivated by a desire to achieve the greater good for her fellow vamps and was in the unenviable position of following a leader who had ruled successfully for a couple of centuries.

The Empress indicated that I should sit and I did.  
She explained that I would be offered for sure to the king of the Dakotas and probably the High Councilor of New York. She was undecided about the third feed. While she was telling me this, there was a low rap on the door and Ilaria walked in with a small tray of medical equipment and – of all things – a jar of honey.

"We've discussed this at length," the Empress said. "We discussed the merits of chocolate and wine and fruit, but we decided upon honey. It's sweet, the taste carries well and it will be known to many of the older vampires who were turned before sugar was brought back from the New World. So if you could eat some of this, Ilaria will take your blood when you're done."

Now, I've always enjoyed a bit of honey – on a piece of toast. Drizzled across a cake.  
But eating it with a spoon out of a jar, Winnie-the-Pooh-style, is another matter.  
I made my way halfway through before I put my spoon down.  
"I think I'll be sick if I have to eat any more," I said.  
Ilaria swabbed my arm and told me to lie back. She tapped my arm, found a vein and started extracting my blood.  
The Empress' face grew a little pink, and she excused herself, leaving the room.  
I knew why: the smell of the bleeding carrier on the couch was probably too much to bear. I imagined she was off in the pantry, scoffing a True Blood or tucking into a bag of blood that they got for her from the local blood donor group.

I watched my blood flow into the plastic bag.  
Ilaria patted my arm. She seemed entirely unmoved by my super-sweet blood - she'd probably just eaten before she came in – I lay back in the chair and looked at the ornate plaster on the ceiling.  
"Is this it?" I asked. "Is this the last thing we have to do before we leave for the States?"  
"Yes," Ilaria said. "Are you looking forward to it, your debut as one of the Five Families, seeing vampire history in the making?"

I felt a bit woozy, so I closed my eyes.  
"Yes," I said. "I can't wait. It's going to be exciting."  
"It will be," Ilaria agreed.  
Little did we know.


	5. V

When he was a boy, Eric Northman's father had insisted that he learn the value of hard work.   
His little princeling was not too good to get his hands dirty and so the boy was sent to gut fish or clean out the stables under the supervision of Ranulf, his father's servant. 

Eric perfected the art of dragging his heels, dawdling and messing about till Ranulf – uncowed by his charge's birthright or status – finally lost his patience and gave him a clip on the ear. He told Eric to look sharp or there'd be more where that came from. Eric went about his chores with a hot ball of resentment in his chest, using as little energy as possible to complete his tasks so he could expend the rest on feeling hard-done-by.

A thousand years later and Eric was still doing the same.   
For a number of months now, this same feeling of reluctance and resentment had come over him every time he pushed the heavy door of Fangtasia open. His steps slowed and he ignored the regulars who greeted him as he crossed the bar-room floor. Of course, there was no Ranulf to slap him across the back of the head, but he could see in Pam's eyes that she would gladly do it, were she given the chance.

"You're late," she hissed as he passed the bar.  
"I had business to attend to," he lied.   
He had discovered the joys of Netflix: crawled out of his coffin and sprawled across his couch, watching drama series about humans solving crimes with forensics.  
It was very interesting. And there was a lot of blood.   
Is this the vampire equivalent of a cookery show? he wondered and the thought made him smile.

"You promised you would be here at ten pm sharp, Thursday through Saturday," she said. "It's not much to ask from the damn owner of the bar."  
He waved his fingers at her in dismissal and made his way through the crowd.   
They parted to let him through: he was a head and shoulders above most of the men in the bar and many of the punters had come to see him anyway. He continued to make eye contact with no one, ascending the throne with sullen ill-grace.

Once on the stage, he slumped down, resting his chin on his hand.   
The crowd gathered around the base of the stage, women and men dancing provocatively, staring at him and hoping to catch his eye. He ignored them and examined his fingernails instead.   
Nothing drove the punters as wild as being ignored.

The place was full, which was encouraging.   
For a while, their receipts had been dropping, so Pam had hired a 'consultant' to help her turn the business around. The consultant was human, a gay human of the flamboyant variety that had arrived with a small entourage and toured the bar exclaiming and gushing about its "authenticity" … before systematically trying to destroy it all.

"It's fabulous," he had said.   
What was his name? Ray? Roy? No, Ray, but he'd spelled it Raë.   
"It's fabulous," Raë kept saying, "but it needs to be - revamped!"

And he'd said it in such a way that it seemed like he was expecting applause for the pun.   
Instead, it was met with Eric and Pam's stony-faced silence - the decorator was clearly not used to dealing with vampires.  
He'd spoken to them for two hours about the need for increased attractions, a better ("less threatening") ambience, some special offers and more active social media marketing.

"Don't you have a Twitter account?" Raë had asked, fake-shocked.  
Eric looked at him blankly but Pam, at least, knew what it was.   
"Do I look like the kind of girl who wants to restrict herself to 140 characters?" she'd sneered.

Raë threw up his hands in a gesture of defense. "Then you guys need to find someone who can handle all of that kind of thing for you. Don't you have anyone young – more tech-savvy than you two?"  
Pam rolled her eyes and said she'd find someone.   
And while she was instructing one of the baby vamps from their clientele in how to tend Fangtasia's social media needs, Raë and his team repainted the bar, threw out some of the older and grottier furniture, replacing it with heavy pseudo-antique side tables and chairs. They suspended three cages from the ceiling, like ornate bird cages, but big enough for a human … or a vampire.

Eric and Pam had stood to one side, watching them being cranked up off the floor.  
"And who is supposed to go in there?" Pam said, crossing her arms.  
"I'm thinking a couple of your more attractive Vampire patrons," Raë said. "Young, sexy – a bit of leather, a bit of lace, nice fangs…"  
"Won't work," Eric said shortly. "The Vampire League will be on our asses in an instant. Vampires in cages, snarling at humans? We're supposed to be helping to improve the reputation of vampires everywhere."   
He said the last bit in a sing-song voice. The Vampire League was on a major public relations drive: they wanted vampires to be seen as the friendly fanged neighbors everyone wished they had.  
"Well, why don't you put some humans in there?" Raë countered. "You know, it's a very ironic post-Vampiric statement, I think."  
"A very stupid statement, I think," Pam echoed in Swedish. Raë didn't understand the words but he got the venom.  
"We can take them down," he said. "No biggie. Whatever."  
"Leave them," Eric said wearily. 

He just wanted the whole lot of them out of his bar and back to New Orleans as fast as possible.   
He paid the exorbitant bill for their services and told Pam that he wasn't spending any more money on that bullshit. He thought they'd been conned by a clever human selling them the interior decorator's equivalent of the emperor's new clothes. But at that point it was too late to stop: the bar had been closed for a week and every social media outlet that Raë could think of was advertising their re-launch.   
Sorry: their re-vamping.

It turned out that Raë's re-vamping had borne fruit and his ironic post-Vampiric statement proved hugely popular with the vampires and humans alike. The cages were never empty: the more extroverted, the more drunk or the more high in the bar competed to be allowed to writhe and wriggle behind bars till Pam decided that enough was enough and dragged them out by the ear.

Some of Raë's other ideas had also worked: the Facebook and Twitter feeds seemed to be bringing in extra customers, their 'Ladies Go Free' night on Thursday was attracting a lot of local interest - and interest from Pam, who manned the door on these evenings and looked each freebie up and down.   
In fact, Eric was beginning to feel that Pam was becoming a bit of a Raë Disciple: she was talking about getting Raë to re-vamp her apartment. Eric had caught them discussing velvet curtains and chalk paint.   
He was not amused.

Raë was the one who insisted that Eric and Pam were the bar's main attractions, not the collar-wearing humans and baby vamps prowling for a free feed. Other local vampires balked at the idea of being put on show and, to be frank, most of them were not really show-worthy: not in the way that Fangtasia's punters expected. The Shreveport vampires were, for the most part, a very dull and unspectacular bunch and Eric was sure that having vampires like Louis Davis – the tractor-driving night-farming vampire from Shawroot - sitting at the Fangtasia bar in his battered jeans wouldn't do much for sales figures.

This was the reason why Pam was insisting Eric come in for two hours each evening to be stared at, gawked at, pointed at, drooled over and photographed.

"It's undignified," Eric had protested. "And very, very boring."  
"Suck it up," Pam snapped. "And get on stage."  
"Pam, I think - "  
"Suck it up, Eric, and get on stage."  
And she looked at him, her eyes rimmed with too much black kohl, sparking the kind of fire he did not have the energy to fight.

So he sat in his chair, his long legs extended outwards, sometimes summoning a pretty girl to come onstage and amuse him.   
Or go offstage with him and amuse him more.   
Then he would weave his way through the bar, fingers linked with some woman's, through the envious crowd, avoiding Pam's gimlet stare and knowing that she was going to give him hell when he later re-emerged, sated and marginally less bored.

Eric looked at his watch: 10:46.   
Good God - he was stuck here till midnight.   
If he was unlucky, he'd have to listen to a couple of whiny supplicants: vampire citizens in his sheriffdom that were looking for some kind of favor or arbitration in a dispute.   
He shifted in the large wooden chair and looked around. Pam, motionless behind the bar, was staring at him.   
When he met her eye, she raised a finger, "Fuck, no!" she mouthed slowly, shaking her head.

Eric sank back in his seat, folded his arms and sulked.


	6. VI

So our presentation for the Dallas vampires had turned out to be a disaster.   
The night after the presentation, we were summoned to the Empress' room upon waking. Of course, the humans had already been up for hours. Sonja and I had been discussing the previous night by writing notes: we had been told the rooms were all probably bugged so we sat side by side and scribbled our conversation on the pages of one of my notebooks. 

Sonja felt as I did: the chances of the Charter being passed were fading.   
The American vampires' belief that this was an attempt to impose restrictions on their freedom of government had gathered momentum and was culminating at our last stops in Dallas and, we feared, New Orleans.

We burned the pages in the bathroom sink with a lighter and headed into the Empress' suite.   
She raised her fingers to her lips as three of her vamps systematically searched the place for bugs.  
As we watched, one of them found something on the ornate tip of a curtain pole. They searched the others and found more. They were removed and the assembled company started to speak in low, urgent whispers. 

Some of the vampires in the audience had been spotted at previous presentations – troublemakers, shitstirrers. Who had started the 'Cui bono?' shouting? Could we have another private audience with the Dallas king?

"I've spoken to him already," the Empress said. She looked weary and drab. "He just shrugs and says there's nothing he can do if that's how his vampires feel. I wouldn't be surprised if that little bastard put them up to it, though."

There was a buzz of discussion – someone said they'd recognized some of the vampires, from the talks in San Diego or Seattle. Someone else thought they'd planted them in the audience as rabble-rousers.

"So what do we do now?" Stephen's cool voice cut through the noise and the others fell silent. "Should we not rethink who our key players are? If the monarchs are hiding behind their subjects, maybe we need to find the vampires who influence policy and talk to them."  
There were murmurs of agreement.

"We cannot bypass the rulers of their states," the Empress said firmly. "This is an official proposal, put forward by the Office of the Empress of Europe. I will not negotiate with individual vampires to try to placate them into agreeing. The American authorities, such as they are, have an obligation to get their population to toe the line."  
She stood up to her full height, impressive in her four-inch-heels.  
"We drive to New Orleans tonight," she said, "As scheduled. The Queen is expecting us. It is an eight-hour drive so we must leave on time to get there before sunrise. We shall proceed as planned."

She left the room, her head held high, followed by her two ladies-in-waiting.   
I saw Ilaria and Stephen exchange glances. They did not look pleased.

x x x  
I always travelled with Stephen and Ilaria.   
Most of the entourage travelled in a large air-conditioned coach, but the three of us had a car that Stephen had managed to buy when he arrived in the States. We'd driven across most of the Continent in it, squabbling about the music choice, talking about the night's events or simply sitting in companionable silence, watching the country pass us in darkness.

"We are going to take a short stop," Ilaria announced after an hour or so in the car.  
"I thought we were supposed to drive straight to New Orleans?" I said.

Ilaria and Stephen looked at each other.   
Stephen was driving and I knew he could have – and would have – easily managed the long journey from Dallas to New Orleans, driving along the dark roads in his steady, unerring manner. I was half-sitting, half-lying across the back seat, Ilaria was in the passenger seat and I knew by the light of her phone that she was probably looking at interior decoration ideas on Pinterest.

"We have decided to stop in Shreveport," Ilaria said. "There's someone there that we want to visit."  
"That you want to visit," Stephen corrected, glancing sideways at her.  
"That it would be prudent to visit," Ilaria countered.

Stephen harrumphed and put his foot on the gas so the car rocked a little in protest.  
"Where's Shreveport? Who lives there?" I asked.  
"Shreveport is in northern Louisiana," Ilaria said. "The sheriff in this area is someone we would very much like to have on our side. He has many connections to Dallas – his maker was king there for many years. And he's very well-respected among all of the vampires in Louisiana as well – he used to run the NewBlood company. Having him on our side would go a long way to swaying the vote."  
"So we're going to turn up at his door and talk him into supporting our righteous cause?" I asked. "Contrary to the Empress' very clear decree?"  
Stephen grinned at me in the rearview mirror.   
I was always surprised that he, the seemingly most humourless of vampires, understood my sarcasm better than most.

Ilaria, on the other hand, did not.  
"He should know that our cause is righteous. He might need a little persuasion, though. Perhaps … a gift."  
She ducked her head so I would not meet her eye, but it was ok: I knew what the subtext was.  
"So I'm to be his little midnight snack, then, am I?"

No one said anything.

"Does the Empress know?" I asked. "Surely she might notice if we don't turn up at dawn. She might figure we took a little detour."  
"I've told her that we'll stop to visit a friend of mine and go to ground there tomorrow. It's the truth. The sheriff's progeny is one of my dearest friends, we shared a nest together. I would've made every effort to visit her anyway."

"And does the Empress know that you would like the third feed to go to your backwoods sheriff?" I asked, amused. "First the High Councillor of New York, then King of the Dakotas and now the Sheriff of Randomville in northern Louisiana. The honors you doth bestow upon me!"

More silence.   
Stephen turned his head from the road to look at Ilaria.   
She sighed theatrically and wriggled around in her seat.  
"Maggie, love, I was wondering if you would be prepared to – "  
"No!" I said, laughing. "Nice try but no."  
"I haven't even told you – "  
"No," I repeated. "I'm not a snack wagon, a dessert trolley. You can't just roll me out when it pleases you. You guys have got ten vials of my blood to use as you please, that's it. I'm not going to throw you in a freebie for kicks and laughs."

"Magdalena," Stephen said using my full name to impart the gravity of the situation, "this is not going as well as we had expected. We already know that Dallas was a disaster and even though Louisiana likes to think of itself as the premier vampire state, it looks to Dallas for its lead. Northman has enough influence to talk sense into a lot of people. We would be foolish not to use whatever means necessary to bring him over to our side."

"Maybe he's already on our side," I argued. "He might be enlightened enough to understand the necessity of the Charter."  
"Mr Northman has pursued a policy of Grand Isolation for centuries," Stephen said. "He's over a thousand years old; he could've stood for office in almost any state, but he has chosen to serve his own interests instead. I would imagine that he would be more in favour of a political system that does not interfere in whatever shenanigans he gets involved in."

"Maggie," Ilaria implored, "the Empress in her wisdom would rather save you up for the Queen of Louisiana or maybe even the King of the Islands in order to get the support of the Caribbean vampires. Something that would make a big, showy bang. But we don't need the fireworks, we need one little spark that will spread like wildfire through the vampire ranks. We think Mr Northman would be a far wiser investment for our cause, but she will not hear of it. I know you've been contracted for three feeds, but Stephen and I are prepared to pay you whatever the Empress has offered you. Double, in fact, if necessary."  
"It's not about the money," I said, a touch offended. "Money won't make me want to do it. It's not a pleasant experience, you know, and I think three close encounters with vampire fangs are really more than enough. I can't imagine why some humans would do it voluntarily."  
"It's great with sex," Ilaria muttered.  
"Mother of God in heaven!" I cried, "I'm not going to shag him to make it more tolerable, but thank you for the suggestion!"

"Stop the car, Stephen," Ilaria said.   
He pulled over to the side of the road and she squirmed around in her seat to look at me.  
"Magdalena," she said, "I am begging you – I am imploring you – to do this for me. For us. As your godmother, I am asking you for this one, special favour. For me."  
I sighed.  
"It just feels kind of creepy," I said.  
"I know," she answered, taking my hand. "But but Stephen and I will be in the room with you, we'll make sure nothing happens."

That kind of icked me out as well.   
They'd never seen anyone feed on me, it had happened in the presence of the feeder and under the cool, watchful eye of the Empress. Having Stephen and Ilaria look at me sympathetically – hungrily? – while some strange vampire was chomping away on my wrist just made a weird situation potentially weirder.

"Please," she begged.

Ilaria was not the type to beg. She was not the kind to ask a favour. Anything she wanted, she paid for in kind.   
My being with the Empress' entourage was not a good turn: I was being paid to do the job they wanted.   
The fact that it had been an act of kindness was, for someone like Ilaria, a convenient side note. To play her 'I'm-your-godmother' chip without offering anything in return meant that what she needed was important to her.

I conceded. "Very well."  
Stephen and Ilaria beamed.  
"So how will it go down?" I said. "We arrive, you tell him what you want and I stick out my arm?"  
"Not quite," Ilaria said. "His progeny is an old and dear friend of mine. I'll ask her to approach him and see if he and I could talk. I'll explain our position and, as a gesture of goodwill, I will offer you as a tribute."

A tribute.   
I know that's how I was referred to behind my back and in languages I didn't understand: We will offer her as tribute to the King of the Dakotas. She will be a fine tribute for the King of the Islands.   
I knew vampires, I knew their lexicon.   
However it was simply indelicate, in this day and age when humans and vampires were all chummy and egalitarian, to refer to one's human companion as a 'tribute' to their face, as thought he or she were a chest of gold or a particularly handsome cow.

"That all sounds very formal," I said. "Very … proper."  
"He's old," Ilaria said. "The old ones like the old ways."  
"And how should I behave as a tribute?" I asked. "Shy and effacing? Meek and downcast? Coy and come-hither?"

I lowered my eyes and looked up at Ilaria through flickering eyelashes, showing her how coyly come-hither I could be. Sadly, Ilaria was not good at subtlety, either. She regarded me seriously.  
"You can be a little bit cheeky –" she said.  
"Brazen," Stephen muttered.  
"So maybe just be quiet and say nothing. Look at the floor. Don't make eye-contact. Be very … submissive."

Stephen and I snorted in chorus.

"Men like that," Ilaria said earnestly. "Or, at least, they did in the past. You won't be feeding Eric Northman, my love, you'll be feeding Eric Northman's ego."  
"Basically," Stephen cut in, "Keep your gob shut, Maggie. No vampire likes a yappy dinner."  
"Fine," I said. "Let's do it. I'll be a submissive bag of blood, Ilaria will rev up into full diplomatic gear and Stephen will…"  
"Stephen will make sure you two don't fuck it up," he said, starting the car.  
"I am delighted," Ilaria said, clapping her hands. "I know you're going to love Pamela and she's going to adore you. I can't wait for you two to meet."

I'd met a lot of Ilaria's former nest-mates over the years and without exception, they had all been extraordinarily interesting but completely bonkers. I couldn't imagine one of her closest friends running a vampire bar in the middle of nowhere: she had to be a nutcase as well.

"What's he like, this Northman?" I asked.  
"Very handsome," replied Ilaria.   
That didn't reassure me. We'd watched a lot of telly in hotel rooms these past few weeks and one thing had been quickly established: our taste in men was very different. "He's tall, blond, commanding – "  
"Arrogant. Humourless. Commandeering," Stephen added. "Look him up in your database."  
He glanced up at the road sign illuminated by the car's headlights and got in lane for the appropriate exit.  
"Have you met him too, Stephen?" I asked.  
"Once," was the curt answer. I took it that Stephen had not been impressed.

"What's his name again?" I asked.   
I waited till my tablet had picked up a signal, then logged on to The Book of the Undead. It was an online database that had originally started out hundreds of years ago as half a dozen leather-bound books. It was the result of meticulous note-taking by all of the Five Families, swapped and shared over centuries and at times when information exchange was dodgy at best. The Five Families had noted down everything they knew about every vampire they encountered and these volumes formed a huge database of vampires in Europe, from Europe or those travelling through Europe.   
At some point it had been transferred to digital form and it was available to a select few as a reference. Many of the vamps I was meeting in the US had an entry in the book and, as I met them, I was mentally taking notes which were later sent by email to my Uncle James in Ireland, the current archivist for the Five Families.

"Northman, Eric," Ilaria said.  
"There's no Northman, maybe a Norman? Also goes by Normanne, John or Norman, Eric. Or Magnusson, Erik. Scandinavian, thought to be … " I searched for the English word as this entry was written in Irish Gaelic, "Lochlannach. Scandinavian?"  
"Viking," Ilaria confirmed. "What do you call him? Loch- "  
"Lochlannach," I repeated. "'Man from the land of the lakes'."  
"That sounds about right. He is – or he was - Viking. This won't surprise you when you see him."

I continued to read the entry.   
"It says here that he got into trouble for … it's not completely clear, but could it be something like embezzlement? It seems that there was a problem with loyalty and money and … well, he blotted his copybook in some way back in the 1500s and that made him a target for the Five Families. And … oh my God, it goes on for two pages. He's got quite a rap sheet, this one. Obviously, he must have managed to do some serious damage control if wasn't given the true death."

"That sounds like Eric," Stephen said. "He's always been a bit of a wild card. I'm sure there are plenty more blots in his copybook that aren't included in your little database."  
"Well, I for one can't wait to meet this copybook-blotting maverick," I said in a fake-earnest tone. "He sounds like a trustworthy and reliable ally. I shall seriously consider giving him my blood for free, in order to get him on our side and working to pass our amazing charter into law."  
Stephen grinned again, but Ilaria nodded her head vigorously.   
"I'm glad you understand," she said. "I think this will be strategically very important …"

I glanced at Stephen and he silently shook his head.  
Damn, we really needed to work on her concept of sarcasm.


	7. VII

Stephen pulled into a parking lot outside a low building.   
The whole area looked like an industrial estate, with boarded up windows and nondescript buildings. The car park, though full, was pot-holed and shabby.

"Does he live here?" I asked, puzzled.  
"No, no," Ilaria said. "He runs that bar over there, Fangtasia."  
I felt a big smile split my face.   
Could there be a cornier name for a vampire bar? I was beginning to like this Northman chap already.

"You'll have to – " Ilaria waved her fingers and wrinkled her little nose "- freshen up."

I sighed.   
I was sweaty and sticky and offensive to the olfactory centres of any vampires in my presence.   
Ilaria hopped out, rooted around in the trunk of the car, then opened the back door and slid in beside me. She handed me my overnight bag.

"Off, off," she commanded and I pulled my t-shirt over my head.   
Stephen, ever a gentleman, got out of the car and stood in the car park, pretending to breathe in the night air.   
Ilaria picked up my bottle of mineral water and splashed some on the t-shirt, soaking it wet.  
"Now do your best," she said, handing it to me. 

Obediently I swiped myself, while she watched the process with a look of ill-disguised disgust on her face.  
"Humans," she said. "So smelly. It's one aspect of my human life that I have never missed."

She handed me an unscented roll-on deodorant and squirted me with a little citrus oil.   
I knew vampires didn't like chemicals on human skin – no perfumes or other strong scents – but many of them liked their humans marinated in natural oils, like lemon or lavender. Ilaria pulled my chin towards her and did my make up briskly. When I whimpered at her rough treatment, she tapped my nose with the make-up brush and told me to shut up.   
Finally, she handed me a black top, which I recognized as one of her own.

"That won't fit," I said, handing it back to her.   
Ilaria's slender frame was enhanced by push-up bras, whereas my underwear was more of the push-down variety.  
While she could wrap herself in a tablecloth and make it look flowing and elegant, I had to put a lot of effort into making normal clothes not make me look like a hooker. Ilaria's v-neck top looked low-key and elegant on her, but my bosoms would push it to the limits of its respectability.

"No, it's good," she said and shoved it back at me. "You don't want to stand out in here."  
"What kind of place is this?" I asked.  
"You'll see," she said.  
"Have you been here before?"

She gave a you-must-be-joking laugh.   
"I looked up their website," she said. "It's like a vampire theme-park."  
I pulled her top over my head and greeted my breasts as they tried to escape through the neck hole.

Ilaria tilted her head, reviewing me, then grabbed the lace of my underwire bra and yanked my boobs up.  
"Hey!" I yelped.   
She ignored me and tugged the top down.  
"Ilaria!" I hissed, scandalized.   
She leaned over and pulled my hair out of its ponytail and mussed it up around my head. By this point, I'd had enough and swatted her away.

"Leave me alone, you pest!" I cried.  
"Stephen?" she called. He poked his head in the window. "What do you think?"  
"She looks like a proper little trollop," he said.   
I think he was joking. With vampires, it can sometimes be hard to tell.

"Perfect!" said Ilaria and pulled me out of the car so she could inspect me from head to foot. She sighed over my sensible footwear and rooted about in the trunk of the car till she found a pair of black shoes with an impressive heel. I slipped them on. She was half a shoe size smaller than me, but with some toe-scrunching, they fit.

I hobbled across the car park between Stephen and Ilaria, trying to learn to balance in my borrowed shoes. Ilaria pushed the padded door open and let us all in.

x x x  
Oddly, I kind of liked Pamela on sight. 

She was very tall and thin had that brittle, shiny look of a woman who took shit from no one.   
She was wearing a long clinging pencil skirt, topped off with a leather corset over a scarlet silk blouse. Her hair was scraped back into a high ponytail and fell poker-straight down her back. 

She stood at the entrance to the bar like the gatekeeper to Hades, full of fury and scorn.   
She'd been giving some under-aged human a tongue-lashing when we arrived, but she shoved the poor guy aside when she spotted Ilaria coming in the door.   
The two women hugged, air-kissed and admired each other's outfits, and quickly asked about vampires they both knew.

Even Stephen got an air-kiss, but he just looked awkward and moved behind me as though Pamela scared him.   
And I could believe she might: she looked like an imperious Vampire Barbie.

"How did you end up here?" Ilaria hissed as a couple of Goth-clad patrons nodded at Pamela and pushed past us to the bar.  
"Long story," Pamela said, rolling her eyes. "Long. Fucking. Story. But anyway – " she brightened up, looking me up and down. "Who's your human?"  
"She's not my human, Pammie. This is my godchild, Magdalena."  
Pamela's eyes widened.  
"Nice to meet you," I said. She was looking at me appreciatively, the way you might look at a nicely decorated cake or a well-done steak.  
"You've done well with the mainstreaming," she said admiringly to Ilaria. "They even give you godchildren now, how nice."

I opened my mouth to protest, but Stephen nudged me and I stayed quiet.   
They'd lectured me on the short walk to the entrance about the necessity of being quiet. Staying still. Keeping my damn piehole shut.   
I was nothing if not cooperative so, like someone in a hostage situation, I was silent and obedient, allowing Stephen to propel me through Pamela's crazy bar and practising my best submissive face.   
The place was hilarious: Goth seemed to be the style du jour – in fact, it looked like a meeting of The Cure fan-club, circa 1985, had descended upon the little bar to writhe and jiggle to the thumping music. The joint was decked out like a nightmare version of Versailles: blacks, reds, deep pinks. More black. Ornate curlicues juxtaposed with studs and leather. Stephen looked at me wordlessly, his mouth twisting in an attempt not to laugh.   
Fangtasia was fantastic.

Ilaria and Pamela slipped off through a door that probably led to some back office, so Stephen and I sat up at the bar and discussed what we would have to drink.   
I knew a few vampires had already caught my scent: to them, I would've smelled of apples, which is what I'd been eating in the car. A couple hovered nearby, nudging each other, but reluctant to approach us because it seemed mostly likely that I was Stephen's human. 

He, in the meantime, ignored them and treated himself to a bottle of AB blood substitute. This was quite wild in Stephen's books: he was generally abstemious in all respects and would've normally taken a cheaper and more sensible O Positive. But tonight, sitting on a bar stool in his ironed grey slacks and crisp white shirt, he looked like a bank clerk on a mission to get drunk with his daring bottle of expensive AB in his left hand.   
I decided to follow his devil-may-care lead and indulge in an alcoholic drink myself.

I contemplated the shelf of bottles behind the barman and thought about what I'd have. I wasn't a big drinker anyway and under normal circumstances the last thing I would have had was alcohol in a situation where I needed my wits about me, but I was suddenly overcome by a yearning for some Dutch courage.

"What did Vikings drink back in their heyday?" I asked Stephen.  
As always, Stephen understood me immediately: if I smelled like something this Northman found desirable, I would be even harder to resist.  
"Mead, probably," he said.  
Oh, God. More honey.  
"Bleurgh," I said. "Fuck it, I'll have a beer. I've yet to meet a Scandinavian who doesn't like beer."

Suddenly the barman sat a tequila sunrise on the bar in front of me.   
"They're on the house," he said, indicating Stephen's bottle.  
Surprised, we looked around, expecting to see Pamela.  
Instead, we realized we were being observed from a little stage. 

Mr Northman – for I presume it was he, I couldn't see much more than the top of his blond head in the shadows - was sitting on a kind of wooden throne, flanked on either side by smaller and less ornate chairs.   
I ducked my head and smirked.   
What an egomaniac, I thought. On a throne!  
We nodded our thanks.   
He barely moved his head in acknowledgement.

"Turn around," Stephen said.   
I whizzed around on my bar stool and sipped my drink.   
Oh, man. It was exactly what I wanted. How did the creepy vampire know?  
"If we make eye contact with him, he'll summon us," Stephen said. "Don't turn around and don't look at him."  
"What if he sends one of his minions to come and get us?"  
"We'll cross that bridge when the minion comes over it," Stephen replied.

Fortunately, Pamela and Ilaria came over the bridge first.   
Ilaria told us to finish our drinks and look sharp, while Pamela went up on stage to speak to her maker.   
With her back to them, blocking their view, Ilaria made a few last-minute adjustments to my outfit: tug, yank, sniff, sniff.

Mr Northman sailed past us, not deigning to even look our way.  
"Come," he barked.   
He held the door open and allowed us to go through. 

As I passed, I caught his smell and I'm certain he caught mine, too. He smelled very faintly of the sea, that salty, briny, cold smell.   
And something else familiar.   
I was briefly tempted to pretend to stumble and fall into his armpit, but I restrained myself. He was very tall: when I passed, my head didn't quite make it to his collar bone. The large hand that held the door open above my head could have easily snaked around my neck and squeezed it tight.   
I hurried by.

He led us into an office and sat up against his desk, indicating the long leather couch against the wall.  
I sat; the others did not.  
Mr Northman faced Stephen and eyed him up and down. Stephen's face twisted to a sneer.   
Something seemed to pass between them, then they each stepped back.  
The blond vampire turned to my godmother.  
"Why are you here, Moore, and what's this about?" he said to Ilaria, sgtraight to the point.

Ilaria took a step forward and lay her index and middle finger across the pulse of her left hand, the traditional vampire gesture of supplication.   
Northman looked at her, amused.  
"The old ways are redundant here, Ms Moore," he said.  
To all of our surprise, she spoke to him in a language he knew – probably Swedish, of some vintage. Maybe even the Norse of his youth.   
Stephen and I exchanged glances, raising eyebrows in our respect for Ilaria's hidden talents.

Ilaria spoke long and energetically.   
Fortunately for us, Old Norse and Ilaria lacked the words for many of the concepts vital to their conversation, so we picked up 'charter', 'internet', 'culling', 'congress' and a few more.   
I later insisted I'd heard 'wifi and 'Facebook', but Stephen maintained I was just suffering the ill-effects of swilling my tequila sunrise in one go. 

Eric Northman watched her speak – he simply leaned against his desk, motionless, his eyes following her as she paced back and forth lecturing (was it?) and imploring (might it have been?) him in his native tongue.   
When he finally spoke, his voice was low and even. He, too, spoke at length and did a lot of head-shaking.   
Ilaria listened politely, then her face broke into a hard smile, like ice cracking.

"Maggie," she said and motioned for me to come over. Stephen squeezed my hand.  
Go, girl! his eyes said. Showtime!

I stood up and walked over to Ilaria, my eyes dutifully downcast.   
The floor of the office was clean, but the tiles were cracked and shabby. I pretended to study them  
Ilaria switched to English.

"This is Magdalena Maria Kennick," she said. "Grand-daughter of Big Seán Kennick and great-great-granddaughter of Mary Elizabeth van Helsaig Kennick and Thomas Seán Kennick."  
"Impressive pedigree," Mr Northman said. "But I don't like redheads. Is she a carrier, at least?"  
I bit my lip.  
"Of course," Ilaria said. "She has offered herself as tribute to Francis, king of the Dakotas, and Eva, the High Councillor of New York. She will give you her blood if you give us your word that you will do your best to sway opinion on the charter."  
There was silence.  
I became aware that I was being stared at, so I looked sideways at Stephen.   
He motioned down. I kept my eyes on the floor.

"So it's true, you're one of the carriers," he said.   
Given that it was directed at me, I looked up.  
"You know this already," I said frankly. "You can smell it."  
He grinned. He had a crooked nose and a bit of an overbite. I really couldn't see his appeal: arrogant shit.

"And can you smell me?" he asked. "They say that the carriers can smell us vampires, too."  
"Yes," I answered honestly.  
"And what do I smell like?" he looked amused, the way you do when you watch a child perform in front of a room full of adults.

Fuck it, I thought. I don't do submissive well, anyway. 

I leaned in, on my tiptoes, till my nose was millimetres away from his cheek.   
He froze.   
I breathed deeply. And breathed again.   
Beneath the smell of his cologne, his shower gel, I could smell his skin.   
A muscle in his jaw worked, as though he wanted to say something, but he was still.  
"Cold sea, but the sea shore, not the open sea. I can smell seaweed and sand."  
"I'm Swedish," he said. "That's an easy guess."

He still hadn't moved.   
His mouth was practically next to mine. I leaned forward a minuscule amount to be close to his skin again.   
The top of my lip grazed the small hairs on his cheek.   
When I glanced down to concentrate, I could see his hands tighten on the edge of the desk, so I closed my eyes and breathed deep.  
I pulled back.

"I smell … apples. And honey. With a little bit of spice. Probably your favourite, because you ate a lot of them and I can still smell them on your skin."  
He looked horror-struck and I grinned.  
"We won't tell anyone you have a sweet tooth. A sweet fang," I whispered.  
Ilaria cleared her throat.

"Nice party trick," said Pamela. "I'll be sure to stay at arm's length. I'm not sure I want to be … smelled."  
She didn't need to keep her distance.   
I had got her scent when we were introduced at the door. She had the dusky smell of face powder and sweet lilac.  
"But I'm not sure that dabbling in politics is the best thing for Eric to do, not after all we've been through. Don't you think, Eric?" Pamela asked. "Don't you think?" she repeated, when her maker said nothing. 

She turned to Ilaria with a "See what I have to put up with?" expression on her face.  
There was silence. He was staring at me, calculatingly. I hoped he was hungry.  
Apparently he was.  
"I accept your tribute," he said finally. "You can count on my full support."  
Pamela snorted and snapped something at him in Swedish – blah, blah, blah, sucky. Blah, sucky, blah.  
It was sucky, I thought, but there you go.

The atmosphere in the room had changed.   
Ilaria clapped her hands again, like a child, her dark hair swinging about her face as she whirled to hug a slightly-less-than-delighted Pamela.   
Stephen stood up and smoothed down his pants. He winked at me.  
In the meantime, I was removing my watch and pumping my fist to get the blood flowing nicely in the nook of my elbow. Or maybe Northamn preferred the wrist. I rubbed my pulse a bit as well.

He grabbed my lower arm. "The neck and the neck only."  
"No!" Stephen, Ilaria and I said it as one.  
"Sorry," I said. "I don't do the neck."  
"The neck or nothing," he said. His fingers circled my wrist easily, like a very big bracelet.  
"Eric – " Ilaria started.  
"The neck or nothing," he repeated. "If it's not the neck, I will simply withdraw my support. I can just stay here in little ol' Shreveport and say nothing. However, should anyone ask, I will be sure to let them know that you three turned up here – without your Empress' knowledge – to offer me her human carrier in order to illegally sway the southern vampires' votes. I don't know how it works nowadays in Europe, but we American vampires – " he emphasized the word to show us just exactly which side of the fence he stood on – " don't take too kindly to manipulating voters."

What a sneaky bastard, I fumed.   
I glared up at him, but he ignored me, grinning.  
He stood up to his full height, easily towering over even Stephen, who was a little taller than average. I twisted in his grip to frown at Ilaria and Stephen, but they simply looked at me, helpless and stricken.

Eric bent his head to mine. This time it was my turn to freeze.  
"I will not hurt you, Ms Kennick," he said. "You will find that the neck is much less unpleasant than the arm, if it's done properly. And I assure you, I have had a lot of practice."

And he grinned again, dropping fang. I jumped at the click.  
He stared at me and I realized he was trying to glamour me, the fool.  
"Northman," Ilaria said in a warning voice.  
"Okay, you can do it," I said. "And not because you glamoured me, because that shit doesn't work on me."

This was not going the way any of us had planned, I thought.   
I could see no way out of the mess we'd just go ourselves in so, I supposed it was best to just get the whole rigmarole over with and be on our way to New Orleans.  
"Excellent," he said, grinning.   
He walked to the door of the office and motioned for the others to leave. Ilaria and Stephen grew loud in protest, but I just waved them out.   
Whatever.   
He was hardly going to drain me with them outside the door.

Eric sat back on the edge of the desk and spread his legs.   
Wordlessly, he pulled me in, still standing, so that my back was to him.   
He started to push my hair back but I did it myself. It was bad enough not to keep him – literally – at arm's length, he wasn't going to mess up my hair as well.

He leaned in and I winced.   
His fangs sank slowly into my neck and he drew blood.   
I suppressed a little "Ow!" and "Ew!" but relaxed when I realized that, after the initial pinch, it didn't hurt that much. He used his tongue to lick the wound, and whatever is in vampire saliva, it made it less painful. I stood still and let him suck, looking around his office. 

The seconds passed slowly, the only sounds were his. After a short time, I became aware that he was enjoying his meal a bit too much. One large hand lightly lay on my hip, the other was holding my shoulder – and yet he was poking me, if you catch my drift.

… Aaaand that was enough.  
"Stop," I said. "Stop it."

He didn't respond. I put a hand up and grabbed a fist of his hair, yanking his head back.   
He could've easily disregarded me, but he allowed me to pull him away. Slipping out of his grip, I regarded his bloody face. He was grinning broadly, his fangs extended, and the collar of his black t-shirt glistened with my blood.

"See? That wasn't too bad now, was it?"  
"You're one hell of a messy eater," I remarked, as he dabbed his clothes with a cloth.   
I pressed my fingers to the puncture holes.  
"And you're delicious. The tequila was a good choice," he said, and then he paused. "Who do you belong to, Ms Kennick?"

I was so sick of that question. I'd been asked it dozens of times in dozens of ways in dozens of states.  
"I'm of the Five Families," I snapped. "I don't need to belong to a vampire. You should know this, you were turned in Europe. It's Vampire Studies 101."

I felt irritated and a little light-headed because greedy Mr Northman had taken quite a bit of my blood. I hoped he wouldn't preposition me, offer me his bleeding wrist and request that we form a symbiosis because that was just plain embarrassing. Turning down horny vampires was starting to get old.

But he didn't.   
He stood up, opened the door and ushered the waiting vampires back in.   
Ilaria took me in her arms and hugged me. I leaned into her and smelled her spice. Stephen hovered, unsure. I could feel him vibrating with fury.

"I think we should go," I said.  
"We will be in touch, Mr Northman," she said. "Pamela and I have exchanged contact details. I've already told you how I wish you to proceed. Please see to it that you begin your task immediately."

Her voice was cold and clipped and a little bit shaky.   
She took a tissue out of her pocket and dabbed my neck, then licked her fingers and patted the wound so it might close before we had to walk through the bar.

"I'll see you to your car," Eric said.   
He pulled me gently from Ilaria's arms and led me out.   
I allowed myself be pulled away; my legs were still shaky.

When we entered the bar, he draped an arm over my shoulders. The vampires on either side of us shrank back, pulling their confused human companions with them. They could smell my blood on Eric's t-shirt but his arm around my shoulders rendered me completely off-limits. It felt weird, like being under an invisibility cloak. 

He steered me easily through the patrons and out the front door, his large hand heavy on my waist.


	8. VIII

We crossed the parking lot.  
It had started to rain, the potholes were filling with dirty water. Stephen got into the driver's side and slammed the door shut, so angrily that the car reverberated.   
Ilaria and Pamela embraced again, Ilaria got into the passenger's seat.  
"So nice to meet you," Pamela said, her voice tinged with a southern drawl. "Terribly sorry it was like this, but do come again."  
We might have been at an antebellum tea party on someone's veranda.   
"Goodbye, Pam," I said.

I was still standing pressed up to the big vampire. He released me reluctantly, it felt, and opened the car door. I slipped into the back of the car and looked up to say goodbye.  
"You can still see the marks on her neck," he said. "The Empress will not be pleased. She needs some vampire blood to heal."  
"She'll get some," Stephen said shortly.   
Eric dropped fang and, quick as a flash, pricked his finger on one. He swiped the wound before I could put up my hands to shove him away.  
"Hey!" I shouted angrily. "He gave me his blood!"

Stephen and Ilaria were out of the car in an instant, I felt where the wound had been on my neck – gone. As was my dizziness and fatigue. Mr Northman had old blood and its effects were instantaneous.   
Still, he had committed a major no-no by giving me his blood unasked and unwanted.

Ilaria and Stephen were shouting at him in various languages: English, Norse, Stephen's clipped German, but Northman just laughed.  
"Come on," I said, leaning out of the car. "Just forget it. Come on."  
A small crowd of onlookers had gathered at the entrance to the bar, watching the curious spectacle. It was not good for the purpose of our mission to be any more conspicuous than we had already been.  
"Get in," I hissed.

They got back into the car, while Pamela flapped her hands in embarrassment and the big Viking smirked complacently. He stood with his arms folded across his chest as we pulled out of the car park, not moving a muscle till we turned a corner and out of his sight.

x x x

We pulled into an all-night truck stop so I could get something to eat. I was suddenly starving.   
My companions pretended to drink coffees; Ilaria shredded a napkin and fretted.   
The truck stop was in the middle of nowhere, and the other patrons in this joint didn't exactly look like the kind of friendly folk that would welcome two vampires, much less two foreign vampires, passing through. Stephen and Ilaria pretended to sip their drinks and apologized for what had happened.

"You have his blood!" Stephen kept saying.   
With a jolt it occurred to me that Stephen had probably hoped that he would be the one to give me his blood. It would've made sense: he had rank, he had pedigree, he was based in Dublin, too, and he and I got on well. We could've formed a very nice symbiosis and maybe even something more. 

He was so angry at Eric Northman's healing swoosh that I could finally recognize that he liked me.   
Maybe even quite a bit. The thought just added to the over-all weirdness of the night.

Ilaria felt so bad that I couldn't be angry with her for her part in what had happened.   
The fact that she was enduring all of the unpleasant smells of sweaty truck drivers and greasy food, watching me in the even more unpleasant act of eating (something most vampires would rather not do, right up there with watching a human peeing or – God forbid – pooing) was testimony to how bad she felt.

"Look," I said, hardly believing what I was planning to say, "no harm, no foul. You say he'll do what he's been asked. He got his blood and it didn't hurt as much as I expected. Sure, I got a tiny drop of his, but I'm not going to see him again, so it won't matter. If he manages to sense my emotions all the way up here from New Orleans, then I pity him. Most days I just feel a mixture of exhaustion and boredom. So let's just lighten up and leave the whole Shreveport fiasco behind us."

Ilaria patted my hand and quickly wiped a bloody eye before anyone noticed she was crying. Stephen looked at me long and hard, narrowing his grey eyes till they were nearly slits.  
"You're right," he said. "Let's leave it behind us."

Happily I looked down at my plate – and saw the ketchup smeared across the cheap white porcelain. It reminded me of the streaks on Northman's bloody face. I suddenly lost my appetite.  
I put down my napkin.  
"Are you two finished?" I asked. "Let's keep going or we won't get there before dawn."  
Stephen called for the check and paid. I spent the rest of the journey looking out the window into the Louisiana darkness, reading billboard advertisements and touching the skin on my neck where I'd been bitten.

x x x

If anyone noticed that we checked in just before sunrise, no one mentioned it. The hotel was part of the huge vampire conference centre where the congress was going to take place. The rooms were tastefully decorated to recreate different eras and care was taken to match vampires with an era close to their turning or their choosing. Ilaria chose a room in the style of the 18th century, Stephen and I were too exhausted to care. Thus he ended up in something Art Deco-ish and I was stuck in a generic pastel hotel room with cheap art prints on the walls.   
I had a feeling that this was where they plopped all their human guests.

No matter.   
I was so tired I found myself swaying under the warm water of the shower. I scrubbed off the smell of Fangtasia, the faint bloody fingerprints of Mr Northman's large digits, then crawled into bed.   
I didn't bother to set an alarm. I just let sleep reach out and grab my ankle, pulling me down into its dark, velvety depths.


	9. IX

"Eric?"  
He turned his head to press his face against the warmth of her woollen dress.   
She pulled the big shawl around them both, cocooning him in its warmth. His legs - already too long for his nine years - dangled off her lap, but the rest of his thin little body was hidden under the heavy cloth, leaving only a tuft of blond hair exposed.

He nestled against his mother's warmth.   
His father had chided him again before dinner, in front of the assembled people in the Great Hall. Eric had been told to chop a pile of firewood but he hadn't managed to finish it.  
"He only managed two thirds of it," his father thundered, "so he shall only get two thirds of his dinner."

And so Eric had to watch while everyone else ate and enjoyed their baked apples for dessert. His sister Mina made a show of scooping out the warm honeyed nuts with her fingers, eating them rapturously, while Eric sat by staring at his empty plate.

After dinner, as was his habit on certain evenings, he sneaked into his parents' bedchamber.   
His mother always excused herself after dinner and withdrew, saying she needed to fetch her shawl. She usually did not return.   
Her husband and the others in the hall never even remarked on her leaving - it was simply what she did and they accepted that she sometimes liked to be alone. Often she just sat in the relative quiet of their chamber, the only time of day when she could be by herself. Not that she seemed to mind when Eric pushed the door open a crack and slid in. She always pulled him on to her lap and created a little cave of warmth and love on her knee.

"Everyone is preparing you to be a big, strong man," she whispered - they had to be quiet, no need to draw a passing servant's attention to themselves "- but they forget that you are still but a little boy."  
And from underneath the corner of her shawl, she produced a honey apple for Eric.   
He turned it over in his little hands, sinking his teeth into it with delight.  
His mother hugged him closer.  
"I love you, Mama," he whispered.  
"I love you too, little mouse."  
"Will you always love me?" He asked, suddenly anxious.  
"Forever and ever."  
"And ever and ever?"  
"Until the end of time," she promised and kissed the top of his head.   
He lay his head against her beating heart and smelled her warm skin. He wished he could stay there forever.

x x x

Eric Northman woke suddenly and sat up, banging his head against the coffin lid.   
He flailed in the darkness for a couple of moments: he could still smell her, the side of his face felt the warmth of her breast. His ears were filled with the thump-thump-thump of her heart. His fingers found the button that opened the coffin and he sat up.   
He was in his own house, his own night room.  
She was gone.  
For the first time in centuries, in a millennium, he felt bereft at his mother's loss.   
He put his fingers to his face and felt his skin. His cheeks were streaked with bloody tears.

He stood at the sink in his bathroom and stared at his woeful face.   
What had just happened?   
He rarely dreamed – vampires in general seldom had dreams. They didn't sleep, so how could they dream? Their down-time was black oblivion, not haunted by images of lives past.   
And Eric Northman hadn't thought about his family in years.   
Truth be told, he thought he had forgotten what they looked like, but now when he closed his eyes, he could see every line and wrinkle of his mother's face. What was more, he could smell her, he could feel her soft skin and sense her warmth.

When he opened his eyes, the face in the mirror was wretched. The dream-memory was too vivid.

He went to Fangtasia in a haze.   
He spent two hours on his throne with his eyes closed, trying to capture what he'd woken to that evening.   
But the more he thought about it, the more he concentrated, the less focused and gradually more faint the memory became. By the time his was free to leave his throne and return to his office, his mother's face was unclear. Like a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy: the image was still there but it was no longer sharply in focus.

"Do you ever dream?" he asked Pam when she came into the office to pick up a couple of bottles of vodka for the bar.  
"Dream?" she answered incredulously. "I don't know when I last had a dream."  
She pronounced the word with distaste, but then she perked up. "Have you had a dream?"  
"Yes," he said. "A really vivid one."  
"That was the carrier's blood, then. They say that they can trigger memories. Is it true?"  
"I've had other carriers," Eric conceded, "but not one as concentrated as the redhead. And no dreams before this one."  
Pam stood in the doorway, a bottle of vodka in each hand.  
"So what did you dream of?" she asked curiously.  
"My mother," Eric said and flipped up the lid of his laptop to show her the conversation was finished.

He started to email some contacts he'd made, some of the friendships he'd built up, among the vampire ranks across the US. He thought carefully about the wording of his emails, trying to establish where their loyalties lay. He'd given his word to the Moorish woman and so he was obliged to help them with their cause. 

After a few sentences he paused and pressed his thumbnail against his teeth.   
He was only inches away from where he'd had the carrier woman's blood the night before. He thought about her very white skin and the taste of fruit and orange juice in her blood.   
He wanted her, Eric decided. No, not her.   
He wanted access to the strange blood that would allow him access the things he'd forgotten.   
He wanted to sleep and he wanted to dream.


	10. X

I woke in total darkness, not knowing where I was.  
I peered at the luminous dial on my watch and saw that it was 4.35.  
Morning or afternoon? My fuddled brain tried to make sense of it all.

Suddenly I remembered: I was in the vampire conference centre outside New Orleans. My fingers flew to my neck as I recalled what had happened the night before: Fangtasia. Pamela. Eric Northman.   
I felt a weird, sickening thump in my stomach. What had we done?

With great effort, I pulled myself out of the bed and felt around on the wall beside the bed for light switches, then located the cord that would pull up the blinds on the window. Outside the late afternoon light was fading rapidly; the day had been murky and wet, and what little light there had been was disappearing rapidly into evening mist.  
_Another day had passed without me seeing natural light,_ I thought.  
During the last six weeks, I had kept vampire hours and I was beginning to miss the light of day – however little of it there was in early December.

I pulled out one of the smarter suits which I had carefully packed in my suitcase, dressed quickly and went downstairs. The lobby was strangely empty. Of course, the vampires probably weren't up yet but based on how rapidly it was getting dark, it wouldn't be long before they rose. 

The two women at the reception desk beamed at me in unison, with almost unnaturally straight white teeth. The woman on my right was black, her hair was braided into an elaborate topknot that put mine to shame. The woman on my left was blonde with incredibly blue eyes, a feature she drew attention to with liberal amounts of blue mascara. They were both beautiful, lacquered perfection, and their smiles did not waver or falter as I approached the desk, painfully aware of my crooked teeth, freckles and chickenpox scar.

"How can we help you?" asked Beautiful Ms Topknot.  
"I'm looking for members of my party," I answered stiffly.  
"The vampires have not risen yet," said Beautiful Ms Blue Eyes. "But some of the humans are in the Orchid Restaurant."  
And then, perfectly synchronized, two manicured hands - black and white - gestured to a set of glass doors.  
I thanked them and they nodded, still smiling. I scuttled away.  
They weren't real, I decided. They were probably Stepford Receptionists.

I found Sonja and Hans-Peter at a table in the restaurant.  
They each had a coffee in front of them and empty plates that suggested they'd already had breakfast – or supper. I ate a Danish pastry, licking the apricot jam from my fingertips, and we discussed Dallas again and our new, glamorous surroundings. Although the Empress and her entourage had arrived a couple of hours before dawn the previous night, the Queen of Louisiana hadn't been there to greet them.   
Sonja said the Queen's lackeys had insisted that they rest and recuperate from their journey from Texas and not feel obliged to add the stress of meeting the Louisiana court to the travails of a long night.  
On the face of it, it was very solicitous.  
It could also be construed as very rude, but Empress Moya was taking the high road.  
It was solicitous. Of course.

As we spoke, a loud gong echoed through the bar and hotel lobby.  
We all looked up, startled.  
The Stepford Receptionists' smiles seem to increase in wattage, their backs became straighter. I looked over at the man who'd served my coffee.  
"The Queen has risen," he said solemnly.

If that was weird, things quickly got weirder.  
Vampires started to assemble in the foyer: I saw Ilaria and Stephen being ushered down the stairs by a vampire in blue livery. I stood up and waved to grab their attention, but they didn't see me. Empress Moya descended the stairs, followed by her vampire lady-in-waiting. She was wearing a slim chocolate-brown dress, her hair loose and tucked behind her ears. She did see me, all the way across the foyer and through the doors of the café. She held my gaze for a second and then surveyed those assembled. 

As we watched, the gong sounded again and ta pair of large, ornate wooden doors at the far end of the lobby were flung open, and Queen Catherine of Louisiana came forward, flanked by vampires in the same blue livery and followed by half-a-dozen attendants. The Queen had been in her late forties or fifties when she'd been turned; she was a little stout and matronly. Her blond hair was flicked back off her face in a style that reminded me a bit of Princess Diana – surely she wasn't modeling herself on the former Princess of Wales? The Queen wore a neat two-piece suit that looked vaguely Chanel-esque, around her neck with a string of pearls. 

She approached the Empress and dipped in a curtsey, before rising and kissing her on each cheek. Then the Queen signalled with her hand and the doors were held open by her footmen as all of the vampires were ushered through.

Sonja, Hans-Peter and I gathered our things and hurried into the lobby, but we were stopped at the door of the bar by one of the Queen's blue-clothed staff.  
"Vampires only," he said.  
"But we're with the Empress," Sonja protested.  
"Vampires only," he repeated.  
"We are of the Five Families," she said, indignant.  
"Vampires only."  
And he walked off.

The three of us stood in the empty foyer, astounded.  
Hans Peter shrugged.  
"Then I go watch the TV," he said.  
He pronounced it "tee-wee". Under other circumstance I would've been delighted, but I was too confused by what had just happened to appreciate his German accent. Sonja followed him towards the elevator and I scuttled after them. Wordlessly, we returned to our rooms. I kicked off my high heels and turned on the telly, my phone on the bed beside me in case Ilaria or Stephen might text me and let me know what was going on.

They didn't.

I watched a 'Mission Impossible' marathon on one of the hotel's in-house movie channels.  
Halfway through the third one, I ordered some sandwiches from room service. By that time, I'd changed out of my suit and into my pyjamas. I finished the film and crawled into bed to watch the fourth. I don't know exactly when I fell back asleep, but when I woke up, the first film was playing again. I cleared the empty plate from my bed, brushed my teeth and turned off the TV. Before I fell asleep, I checked my phone for the thousandth time.  
No messages. No missed calls. Nothing.

And that's how I spent my first night in New Orleans.

I woke mid-afternoon the next day and explored as much as I could of the convention centre. It was huge: an enormous rectangular building with a large courtyard within. The outside walls were patrolled by guards. I knew this because I'd just walked out of the hotel's front door and turned to walk down the street when an armed guard approached me and asked where I was going. When I told him I was going for a walk, he looked at me as though he didn't understand.  
"Where to?" he asked.  
"Just around," I said. "You know: for a walk."

He appraised me carefully and suggested that I take a walk in the courtyard. He called me "ma'am". I was about to argue when his walkie-talkie crackled and he answered with a curt "Yes?", looking over my shoulder. I followed his gaze and saw another guard at the corner of a hotel, holding what looked like a machine gun. I suddenly realized that this place was as heavily guarded as a prison, so I turned on my heel and went back inside.

When the evening gong sounded, I rushed back to the foyer but there were no familiar vampires about.  
When I went back upstairs to my room, I found Ilaria sitting at my dressing table, looking decidedly glum.  
I hugged her and sat on the end of the bed.

"Do you want the good news or the bad news?" she asked.  
I needed to rip the bandage.  
"Bad news," I said and braced myself for what was to come.  
"Queen Catherine does not require us to hold our speeches and presentations. Instead you will be introduced to her at a greeting ceremony at the ball tomorrow. Full formal evening dress, if you don't mind."  
That's not the way we'd done it so far, but things were clearly different in America's vampire capital.

"What are we to do till then?"  
"The Queen has arranged some tours of New Orleans for our human companions."  
"During the day?" I asked.  
Ilaria nodded.  
I tried to make sense of it. "But shouldn't we be awake with you guys at night?"  
"Apparently not," she said stiffly. "Apparently your interference in vampire affairs is not required."  
It sounded like she was quoting someone. I didn't dare to ask who.

"And what's the good news?"  
"There is none," she said shortly. "I lied. There's just bad news and worse news."  
I felt a chill run down my back. "Do you want to tell me here?" I asked and mouthed, "Isn't the room bugged?"  
Ilaria shook her head.  
"We have friends on the inside," she said cryptically. "Apparently you're not important enough to bug."  
I was a little insulted, but just a little and not for long.

Ilaria continued.  
"When the Empress asked if we could hold the summit at the New Orleans centre, Queen Catherine said – and I quote – 'be my guest'. Meaning, Empress Moya thought, that we were welcome to use the facilities here. We'd organise it, host it and hold it in New Orleans as a concession to the American vampires."  
_Actually,_ I thought, _it was probably because the vampire parliament room in their Dublin headquarters was tiny, nowhere big enough or grand enough for a meeting on this scale._  
"But last night we were informed that we are literally Queen Catherine's guests. The summit is to be held on her terms, organized by her people. We have no say in the schedule of events, nothing. The Empress is a guest at her own summit."

I was stunned.  
"But what about – us?" I asked.  
All of the entourage had been hired to do specific tasks in preparation for the huge influx of vampires for the summit.  
"Well, you're umemployed," Ilaria said. "After the ball on tomorrow evening, you are not needed."  
"What am I supposed to do for the next three weeks?" I wailed. "Am I supposed to fly home and then come back for the summit itself?"  
Ilaria shrugged.  
"Probably," she said. "The Queen has made it quite clear that we can't be taking up valuable hotel rooms at such a busy time of year. She has invited the King of Dallas and a few other dignitaries to come early and _talk through the proposals._ " She made air-quotes this time. "The Empress and her nearest and dearest will be tolerated till the summit starts, but the rest of you are superfluous and expensive space-wasters."  
It was a lot to process.

"How's the Empress?" I asked.  
Ilaria rolled her eyes.  
"Livid," she said. "You have to imagine that this entire spectacle went down with lots of smiling and bowing and 'dear Empress' this and 'esteemed Empress' that. But what can Moya do? If she protests and insists on taking over, the Queen will pretend to be offended and the American vampires will be furious."  
She checked her watch.  
"I have to return," she said. "Our dear Queen is subjecting us to some kind of lecture about the history of vampires in Louisiana and we all have to attend."

Ilaria stood up and planted a kiss on each of my cheeks. Her brown eyes were worried and looked weary. I tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear and gave her a quick hug.  
"Just keep me posted," I said. "Let me know what's going on."  
She promised she would and then left.

x x x 

I was woken by loud knocking at the ungodly hour of 10 am the next morning.  
I hadn't seen 10 am in weeks and weeks, my body didn't know how to function before noon any more. When I opened the door, I found a dazzlingly smiley couple in the corridor. They wore blue blazers in the colour I'd begun to recognize as part of the Queen's official insignia, and they looked like summer camp counsellors or some kind of missionary.  
One thing was for sure, whatever conveyor belt the Stepford Receptionists had come off, this pair was from the same source.

They introduced themselves as Rob (Caucasian, hair gelled into place like a Lego man's, broad-shouldered and manly in a college-football-team kind of way) and Katie (Asian, hair cut in a blunt Cleopatra style, manicured blue fingernails to match her blazer.) They were far too chirpy and enthusiastic for such an early hour of the morning: they explained that they were there to take me and the other European humans on a tour of downtown New Orleans, courtesy of the Queen of Louisiana.  
_Oh, gawd,_ I thought, but couldn't think of any reason not to go.  
I excused myself politely, got dressed and brushed my hair with a lot of speed and little enthusiasm.  
When I opened the door again, they were still standing there with the same insane grins.  
I don't think they'd even moved a muscle.

In the foyer downstairs all of the human members of the Empress's entourage – except Tomas Ardelean, who had probably told them to go jump in a lake – were assembled. Tweedledee and Tweedledum rounded us up and led us out to a minibus. We were driven into the centre of New Orleans, with Rob and Katie giving us a running commentary all the way. We were marched around the city and returned to the hotel in the late afternoon, where we were dropped off, footsore and weary, like children after a birthday party. I couldn't help but feel that we had all been ... kept out of trouble for the day.

I grabbed a sandwich from the restaurant, which I wolfed down in my room, then I took a shower, conscious of the fact that I was expected to appear in full evening dress for an evening of kow-towing and small-talk in a matter of hours, when all I really wanted to do was collapse on the bed and watch more mindless TV.

After I had showered, Ilaria came by and did my hair, catching me up on the events of the past twenty-four hours in more detail – the grovelling and back-stabbing, the power struggles encased in polite smiles and elaborate vampire protocol.  
She even sounded a bit envious of our time spent with Rob and Katie.  
Doing my hair, though, was Ilaria's way of relaxing. She loved doing hair – hers, mine, anyone willing to give her a loan of their head. She was going to try to do something in Grecian style to match my empire-line dress and she had a fistful of colourful foam rods to help her. She brushed my hair – sigh, so red, so wavy and fine, so unruly – and twisted most of it up into a bun, fixing it into place with a lot of hair spray and pins and curses (mine). The neon-coloured curling rods were twisted around my head: with a bit of persuasion, the strands of hair could be coerced into tantalizing curls to frame my face.  
When she was finished twisting them in, I looked quite mad but she made me promise I'd leave them in till just before I went downstairs.  
"It'll look amazing," she assured me. "Trust me." 

Then her smile faltered and she cleared her throat.  
"I should probably tell you that Eric Northman is here."  
I groaned. "You're not serious, are you?"  
"He's one of her sheriffs, so it's not surprising. Just stay cool and stay away from him. Stephen is freaking out already."  
"Why is Stephen freaking out?"  
"Because you've had his blood. He thinks you'll be throwing yourself at him like some kind of wanton hussy."  
A wanton hussy. Nice.

Ilaria paused delicately. "You might have noticed that Stephen … eh… likes you."  
"I noticed," I said grimly.  
A bit too late, but I noticed.  
"You haven't had… dreams about Mr Northman, have you?"  
"Dreams?" I repeated, then realized what she was asking. I'd heard about some of the more interesting side effects of vampire blood. "No, no dreams. I really don't think I got enough blood to have the dreams."  
"Good," said Ilaria. "Stephen will be most pleased."  
She kissed me and left.

Five minutes later, there was a knock at the door. I flung it open, expecting to see Ilaria, back to pick up something she'd left behind.  
But it wasn't.  
It was Eric Northman.  
He looked me up and down. And smirked.

Okay, so here's the deal: Eric Northman didn't mean anything to me, but that also didn't mean that I wanted him to see me in my dressing gown with a halo of fluorescent green and pink Styrofoam pipes twisted like crazy worms around my head.  
I looked like a lunatic.

"Can I come in?" he asked politely, barely concealing a grin. "Or is this a bad time?"  
"You think?" I snarled.  
He was already dressed in his full formal gear: white tie, tail coat. I didn't like to admit it, but he looked reasonably handsome.  
Then I checked myself. Even a baboon would look handsome in a dinner suit.

"I felt compelled to enquire after your well-being," he said, mock-formally. "Following our meeting in Shreveport."  
"Shut up," I hissed and pulled him inside.  
He looked down on me from his great height and prodded one of the curlers.  
"Get lost," I said and slapped his hand away.  
"Is this _à la mode_ now?" he wondered. "It looks quite strange. I have never understood female fashion."  
"What do you really want, Mr Northman?"  
"I told you: I wanted to see how you were."  
"Fine, thank you." I opened the door and nodded pointedly in the direction of the hall.  
"You haven't been dreaming about me, have you?" he enquired.

I slammed the door shut again, fearful that someone would pass the door and hear.  
"No, I most certainly have not," I snapped.  
"No … sex dreams?"  
Honestly, he had a smirk on his face that made my blood boil.  
"You wish!" I hissed.  
"Because we probably will have sex eventually," he said casually, "Your attraction to me will probably start with the dreams."

I made some strangled noise of disgust, yanked the door open, and then placed a hand in the small of his back and shoved him in the direction of the hallway.  
He grinned and allowed himself be pushed.  
"See you later, future lover," he called softly as I slammed the door shut in his face.  
"Fuck off!" I answered, through the door.  
I heard his low laugh as he walked away.

Bleurgh. I wanted to take another shower.


	11. XI

Just before the ball started, I removed the twisted curlers and arranged the curls to fall about my face. Ilaria was right: it looked very pretty. I put in my diamond drop earrings, picked up my shawl and took the stairs down to the foyer, savouring each step in my long gown.

Stephen had been waiting for me and his face lit up when I came down the steps. He looked really attractive in his dinner jacket, his dark hair combed to one side. When he saw me, he gave a tidy little bow. Stephen looked as though he belonged in a formal suit and I knew by the way he bowed that it was something he had done hundreds of times in his human lifetime. I paused at the top of the stairs and grinned at him. I felt a bit like Kate Winslet in Titanic. I really wanted to relish my moment of stair-descent in my fancy frock, but the foyer was crowded and I had to jostle past all of the people, human and vampire, on their way to the ballroom. 

I was finally allowed to pass through the ornate doors in the lobby, I got to see what had been closed off to us humans thus far. Stephen linked my arm in his and led me down the carpeted corridor. I could hear the band playing all the way down the hall – gentle classical music that barely covered the sound of laughter and conversation. Inside the huge room, people were standing around with glasses of red liquid – all of the drinks were red. Artificial blood, wine, a variety of red-coloured cocktails. It was very tastefully done, indeed: humans and vampires could clink glasses without having to give a second thought to what the other was drinking.

The ballroom was full.  
People in beautiful evening wear mingled and chatted. The room was lit by low-hanging chandeliers; the walls were lined with chairs covered in the Queen's signature blue, the large floor-to-ceiling windows draped with blue curtains. Everything else was white: the walls, the flowers, the cloths covering the tables that held the glasses and refreshments. I breathed in the entire scene - it looked like a film set.  
I couldn't help but beam and Stephen smiled back down at me, delighted at my delight.

A tall, spare vampire approached us. He was wearing a blue bow-tie, so I knew immediately he was one of the Empress' retainers. When he spoke, it was with that odd mid-Atlantic accent that actors in Hollywood films favoured in the 1930s and 1940s.

"Are you the Kennick?" he asked.  
"Yes," I said. "I am she."  
"When I give the signal, you are to come forward and form a line with the rest of your party in accordance to your seniority: legislators, ladies-in-waiting, first assistants, Five Families by age – Ardelean, Romarro, Jäger, van Helsaig and Kennick – " he counted us off on his fingers "- then the lesser ranking vampires, beginning with Mr Hofmann" (he nodded at Stephen) "and then the humans. Understood?"  
"Seniority. Got it," I said.  
"You will be presented to her Majesty by my good self in the esteemed presence of her Imperial Majesty," he intoned. "I trust you are cognizant of the solemnity of the occasion."  
"I am cognizant," I answered. My lips twitched, trying to not to laugh.

I waited till he was out of vampire hearing range.  
"Pompous old fart," I whispered to Stephen.

He shushed me but I could tell he was trying not to laugh as well. We got our drinks – I had a red wine and Stephen decided to have another wild night with a glass of AB - then we mingled, chatting to Ilaria and a couple of other Irish vampires. I was introduced to some of the Louisiana court. The Queen's European-turned entourage viewed me with slight reservation – hardly surprising, I thought, my ancestors had probably tried to stake a few of them.

After a time, Queen Catherine ("Her most gracious majesty, Queen Catherine of Louisiana," said the pompous vampire with the plummy voice) and Empress Moya ("Her most excellent imperial majesty, Empress Moya of the European Territories and the countries of Northern Africa!") entered the ballroom arm-in-arm – best chums for all the world to see, not the slightest hint that they'd spent the past three nights at each others' throats – and ascended the dais that held two heavy, carved thrones, one slightly bigger than the other. The Empress took the larger chair, the Queen sat at her side in the other. As far as I knew, all protocol demanded that the Empress sit higher than the Queen, so I was puzzled at the placing of the thrones. 

I wanted to ask Stephen but he saw the question on forming on my lips and shook his head to keep me quiet. I turned back to listen to their speeches – lots of thanking each other for their most gracious and serene and excellent majesticnesses, or whatever – and caught sight of Eric Northman, head and shoulders above the people around him. He pointed at my head, twirling his fingers, and pulled a clown-like puzzled face.  
" _What happened to your hair?_ " he mouthed at me across the room.  
" _Fuck off,_ " I mouthed back and looked snootily away.

____

____

____

Mr Pompous gave us a nod and the European contingent came forward. We got into line as instructed, even though it felt a bit like a child's party game as we tried to arrange ourselves according to some scale of importance and rank. Ilaria was near the top, as was befitting her role in the Empress's entourage. She curtsied elegantly and said a few words in answer to Catherine's questions. I couldn't hear what she said, but Ilaria looked relieved when they moved from her to the next person in line. The Queen was led down the hall by the tall vampire and formally introduced to each of us. The Empress stood by her side and smiled at us proudly.

____

____

____

When she came to me, Mr Pompous announced me as "Miss Magdalena Maria Kennick," and I did a kind of bob that was supposed to approximate a curtsey.  
"Your majesty," I said.  
Her majesty looked me up and down.  
"So this is your carrier," said the Queen. She had a rather nasal voice and a marked Southern accent.  
"She is one of them, yes," said Empress Moya.  
"I hear she was offered in tribute to the King of the Dakotas," the Queen remarked.

____

____

____

Moya paused a second, a fraction of a second, then answered smoothly, "Yes, she was. But we would be honoured to offer her blood to you as tribute as well, dear Catherine."  
The Queen wrinkled her nose. "I don't think she would be to my taste. I have my own carriers," she emphasized the plural somewhat.  
I sank my gaze, aware that my lovely blood had been slighted in some way.  
"How do you find Louisiana, Miss Kennick?" Catherine continued, allowing her insult no time to sting.  
"I haven't seen much so far, Ma'am," I said, "But New Orleans is really wonderful."  
"You haven't seen much?" She feigned surprise, flapping her bejewelled fingers. "I heard that you and your companions made a stop in Shreveport on the way here."

____

____

____

My heart actually missed a beat.  
I know this because when it restarted, it did so with a _plop_ and then a series of rapid thumps.  
"That is correct," I admitted.  
"Visiting old friends?" she enquired, with a knowing smile.  
"Yes. My companion Ilaria knows a vampire there, one by the name of Pamela – "  
"- de Beaufort," finished the Queen. "Proprietress of a _fun_ little bar called Fangtasia."

Empress Moya was staring at me and I did not like the way she looked. She'd known we were going to stop there, right? That's what Ilaria had said, wasn't it? Something in the way she looked suddenly made me thought that this crucial piece of information might not have reached her ears.  
On my right, Stephen moved away from me. It was, at most, an inch, a barely perceptible shift, but I suddenly felt exposed and very alone under the Empress' icy stare and Queen Catherine's devious gaze.  
"There is nothing like meeting old friends," the Empress declared, turning slightly to include the assembled company, all of whom were now completely silent, straining to hear what she was saying. "Is there? Nothing better than meeting old friends – except, perhaps, making new ones!"

And she turned to the Empress.  
"Dearest Moya, according to a little bird of mine, your carrier here gave her blood to one of my Sheriffs, a certain Eric Northman. I'm sure you have heard of him, he has been in the news quite a lot in the past few years."  
"Is that so," the Empress said. It was not a question. Her voice was deathly still, but my knees started knocking.  
"Now," Catherine continued, "if one were to find out that this blood-giving was to further political aims – whatever they might be – I am sure one would feel quite perturbed. In some vampire circles, this would be considered … what would it be considered, Patrick?"

The tall, pompous vampire pretended to think about it. "Well, if it were to interfere with the official line of leadership taken by her Majesty or her Imperial Majesty, I think some might construe it as treason."  
They all looked at me. Treason was one sin that vampire communities took very seriously. Vampire traitors received the true death, while human traitors met an unexpected demise in, _cough, cough_ unfortunate circumstances. I felt my eyes prick with tears. The room was so quiet you could hear the faint ticking of the large clock over the door; I could hear my own heart banging away in my chest.

"It wasn't like that," I said quietly. "We just went to the bar to say hello to Pamela and I had a few drinks. Then I met Eric, Mr Northman, and I guess I was just a bit drunk and we got on really well, then we ... eh... kissed and he …"  
My voice tailed off, trying desperatelyto come up with something that contained no political intent..  
"He gave me a drop of his blood," I whispered.  
"Northman!" the Queen snapped.

Eric walked across the room.  
His feet made no sound on the parquet. Without saying a word, he slipped in beside me, forcing Stephen to move and causing the rest of the receiving line to shuffle down. I felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude towards him as he took my fingers in his: I suddenly didn't feel like I was entirely alone.

____

_______ _ _ _

____

"Is this true, Mr Northman?" the Queen asked.  
"Yes," he said smoothly. "She came into the bar with the Moorish vampire and this one here – " he jerked a thumb in Stephen's direction. I could feel Stephen's hackles rise "– she had some alcohol and I could tell she was attracted to me. She made it obvious that she wanted my attention, she was throwing herself at me, as the humans say."

____

_______ _ _ _

____

My sense of gratitude evaporated into indignation. I dug my nails into his fingers, but he just squeezed mine gently in return and continued. "Things just got … eh… a little heated. I didn't plan on biting her but she was begging for it. We were very drawn to one another."  
I couldn't bring myself to look up.  
My face was a deep scarlet and I was so enraged, I had to stare at the tips of my navy shoes, reminding myself to breathe.

____

_______ _ _ _

____

"Dear me," said Queen Catherine. "That's hardly the way a nice young lady behaves."  
I nodded, "Yes, Ma'am."  
"And did you have his blood?" she asked. "Because, obviously, if a blood bond has occurred between one of her Imperial Majesty's retinue and my trusted Sheriff, we should've been informed."  
"Yes, Ma'am ... no, Ma'am," I said. "I mean, it wasn't really a blood bond but he he did give me his blood."  
"Goodness me, Miss Kennick, if he gave you his blood then a blood bond has occurred, do you not think?"  
It was only a drop, I wanted to shout. Literally: a drop! Instead I mumbled, "Yes, Ma'am."  
"We wanted to keep it quiet till after the summit," Eric interjected. "It seemed unfair to distract focus from this momentous occasion with something as inconsequential as this."

____

_______ _ _ _

____

He gazed down at me with a fake soppy smile on his face, almost crushing my fingers with a squeeze. I could see that he was enjoying this mightily I forced myself to smile back at him. The tears that had gathered in my eyes trickled down my cheeks and I wiped them away with my fingers, continuing to grin at him in a manner so manic that Rob and Katie would've been proud. The Queen awww-ed and the rest of the people in the room echoed the "Awww!"  
"How sweet!"  
"Isn't that darling?"  
Only the Empress was unmoved. She continued to stare at me, a level, fixed gaze. I couldn't meet her eyes.

____

_______ _ _ _

____

"Well, Moya, you were worrying about what your humans would do while we vampires sorted out this summit of ours," the Queen sang out. "It would seem that Miss Kennick will be spending the next few weeks in Louisiana with her Shreveport sweetheart!"  
"I was actually going to fly back to Dublin tomorrow evening," I said quickly. I didn't like where this was going.  
"Nonsense," said the European Empress, the word cutting and sharp. "Who are we to stand in the way of young love? If your attraction to Mr Northman was so strong that you felt yourself compelled to give him your blood, then I think you should leave for Shreveport with him tomorrow. You will not be needed here until the 20th."

____

_______ _ _ _

____

She finished with a smile – or, rather, her lips turned upwards but her eyes continued to bore into me.  
We had majorly fucked up and while I didn't know what she would do to punish Ilaria and Stephen, she was handing me over to Eric Northman for a few weeks and I'd have to wriggle out of that predicament all by myself.  
"Wonderful!" said the Queen and she clapped her white-gloved hands in delight.  
"Fantastic," said the Empress, the word laden with poison.  
"Excellent," said Mr Northman and he bent his head to brush his cold lips against mine.  
The crowd gave a polite smattering of applause.  
I felt sick.

____

_______ _ _ _

____

Catherine moved on to Stephen and the Empress stepped past me. She gave me one final glare, a tiny, disgusted shake of her head, and pretended to listen to what Catherine was saying. I stood stock-still, my hand still in Eric's, till the two women had made their way down the receiving line. Then the band struck up their music again and people started to move about, chattering excitedly about what they had just seen. I wriggled my fingers out of Eric's, pulled my shawl around my shoulders, and headed for the door.

____

_______ _ _ _

____


	12. XII

"Where are you going, my Titian lovely?" Eric asked softly. "You're surely not leaving, are you?"

I was. That is to say: I had been  
I had been planning to go back to my room and cry in the shower or sob in bed with my head under the pillow. Eric smiled down at me, his eyes were concerned. 

"Because I'm sure we want to spend some time together, now that our bond is no longer a secret," he said in a warning tone.  
I understood the subtext.  
"I hate you," I whispered, and with near-vampire speed kicked his shin with the sharp toe of my fancy shoe.  
He winced, grimaced, then pasted another fake smile on his face.  
"Suck it up," he hissed.

Stalking off to cry in my room was as good as an admission of guilt, and there were dozens of pairs of vampire eyes and ears observing our every move. My task now was to continue the charade of happy little bloodling at Queen Catherine's ball, trailing behind Eric Northman, pretending to be delighted at the fact that I – what was the term Stephen had used? – that I, the wanton hussy, had flung myself at this vampire whilst pickled in alcohol and had given him my blood.  
_Foisted_ it upon him, apparently.

"I'm just going to the loo," I said. "The restroom," I added, remembering that Americans didn't know what the loo was.  
"Two minutes, my sweeting," he said with that same cold grin. "Or I will be forced to go in and drag you out by your auburn tresses."  
His tone of voice made it clear that the thought of it was as distasteful to him as it was to me.

I allowed myself two precious minutes of silence, then returned to his side. He tucked my fingers into the bend of his elbow (had it really been less than an hour since I'd done the same with Stephen? It seemed like a century ago) and moved me around the room, introducing me to more and more people. I just smiled and accepted the congratulations on our fledgling relationship. Some even waxed lyrical about our symbiosis – surely a sign of things to come, if one of the Empress's human aides could find favour with the Queen's most powerful sheriff! What a wonderful union, so significant in these troubled times!

Eric accepted all of the compliments coolly, as though it were his due. I had more problems finding an appropriate reaction, so I stuck with my Rob-n-Katie smile. Most of the older vampires are not particularly good at discerning the subtleties of human reaction any more, so they all just thought that I was ecstatically happy. I grabbed a red drink from a passing waiter's tray and sighed with relief when I discovered it was a Bloody Mary, probably destined for someone else in the room. I drank it before the waiter could take it back and the smile came more easily. It came even more easily with the next drink I stole and by the time I was half-way through the third (some kind of sweet cocktail with cranberry juice), I was smiling like a loon. 

Eric had been holding the same glass of True Blood since we'd started our rounds, so he now discreetly swapped our glasses, giving me his to hold and confiscating mine. _What a shithead_ , I thought sourly.  
"Sorry?" he asked, startled.  
Oops. I might've said that out loud.

All the time I looked for Stephen – no sign of him - and Ilaria. She saw me and wriggled her fingers in a tiny wave, but she made no effort to come over. Instead, she remained at the Empress's side and signalled me with her eyes to stay with Mr Northman. The other members of the Five Families tried to approach me but Eric steered me away out of their range. Tomas Ardelean held my gaze steadily across the room. He was not stupid, the old one, he had seen his fair share of duplicitous vampires and he knew that something was going on. When I looked at him, he shook his head slowly.   
_Silly girl_ , his expression said.  
My face burned bright and it wasn't just the alcohol.

The Empress, on the other hand, did not look at me. Not once. A leaden ball of guilt and shame pressed up against my ribcage. When the Empress left the ball, with many hugs and kisses of air in and around the Queen's face, I breathed a sigh of relief. Not having to look at her alleviated my crushing guilt just a tiny bit. I waited a little longer, and then told Eric I was going to bed. To my surprise, he agreed to let me go - but he'd escort me to my room.

"Ugh," I said. "No, thanks."  
"You're drunk," he pointed out. "I really think I have to."  
He steered me down the hallway, ignoring my hissed protests, but we were stopped on our way up the stairs by Carl, one of the Empress's vampire guards.  
I had been summoned.

The Empress was in a black velvet dressing gown, waiting for me.  
" _Suí síos, a Maggie_ ," she said in Irish – sit down.  
_Oh God, this was going to be bad_ , I thought. She was resorting to Irish. The room was bugged, but she knew the chances of the Queen having an Irish Gaelic speaker in her employ were relatively low.  
So Moya let me have it, no holds barred. 

I didn't understand everything because I hadn't spoken Irish since I left school and, well, I was quite drunk, but I understood the effect of the low snarl of her words.   
Essentially, she was disappointed in me. Ashamed of me. I had let her down. My blood would no longer be needed because the King of the Islands would not want me if I had besmirched myself with a lowly sheriff, to whom - by the way - I now owed my life.  
She did not want to see me till the summit and when I was there, I was to keep out of her way.

 _"Tuigim,_ " I said sadly. I understand.  
I was crying again, big ugly tears. " _Tá brón orm, a Mhoya, tá brón orm._ " I'm sorry, I'm sorry.   
What else could I say? Anything else would implicate Ilaria and Stephen and, by the looks of things, I was getting off lightly.   
My heart was still beating, that was a good start.  
" _Bhuel, sin a bhfuil faoi,_ " she said, standing up. It's done now.   
She turned her back on me and stared out the big windows that overlooked the dark courtyard.  
"You should thank Mr Northmann," she said finally.   
This was my sign to leave.

I slipped out, pulling the door closed.  
Eric was waiting for me at a respectable distance down the corridor, beyond the cordon of the guards. He waited till I was by his side, studying me as I approached with that unnatural vampire stillness.  
"Apparently, I owe you some thanks," I said, unable to be gracious.  
He inclined his head in acceptance of my reluctant gratitude.  
"It's my own fault," he said in a low voice. "I should've known better than to get involved ... so now I have to make the best of a bad lot."  
"Yeah, well, thanks for playing along," I whispered and added in a louder voice. "Good night."  
"By the way," he called after me as I turned to leave, "We'll be leaving here tomorrow as soon as the sun goes down. I'd like to be back in Fangtasia before closing."  
For a moment I didn't understand what he was talking about.  
"Back to Shreveport," he said and glared at me, tipping his head the tiniest fraction in the direction of the listening guards.  
"Oh, right," I said and turned my back so they couldn't see my face and whispered, "What do you mean, _back to Shreveport?_ "  
"You and I are going back to Shreveport, remember?"  
"Fuck, no."  
"Fuck, yes. Unfortunately. You are not the kind of souvenir I had in mind. _My darling_ ," he added and beamed at the guards.  
Aaaargh.  
"Back to Shreveport. Right. I'll be packed and ready. My love," I said, just in case.  
He grinned at me. " _God natt,_ " he said in Swedish and walked away.

I didn't think I'd ever fall asleep. I spent the dawn hours fretting: fretting about the Empress, about Ilaria and Stephen's fates, about having to spend three weeks in a town I didn't know with vampires I didn't know.   
Fretting about needing to sleep but not being able to.   
Time was passing and I was still awake. Why couldn't I sleep?

Then I woke mid-afternoon to the sound of banging on my door. At some point sleep had obviously sneaked up on me and snagged me into its depths. Sonja was outside and she looked a bit worse for the wear, her eyes bloodshot and tired, her hair a bird's nest of tangled curls. She'd obviously just gotten out of bed because she was still wearing her pyjamas bottoms, a thick fleece pullover criss-crossed over her chest.   
_Of course, who was I to pass judgement?_ I thought when I caught sight of myself in the dressing table mirror. 

Sonja sat down on my bed and I told her all – well, I told her all of the official version. The fewer people knew that Ilaria had tried to get Eric Northman to meddle with our Empress and his Queen's affairs, the better. Instead I told her a version of the story Eric had regaled the previous night: one that put me in a better light, of course, and cast _him_ as the desperate and clingy party.  
"And now you're going to spend the next few weeks with him in – where was it again? Shreveport?"  
"Yes," I said. It was hard to admit it without wincing.   
Sonja looked sceptical.  
I knew she didn't believe me but she'd worked around vampires long enough to know that it's sometimes better to know too little than too much. She hugged me and wished me the best of luck. I told her to say goodbye to the others from me – I just couldn't face lying to all of them as well, I didn't think I'd be able to spin my story in front of Tomas Ardelean without breaking down and confessing the truth. She left, making me promise to tell me all about my Louisianan adventures when we met at the summit, and then I set about packing quickly and efficiently, folding everything neatly so it would all fit into my big case.

Just before dusk there was another knock on the door.   
I looked through the peephole and saw Ilaria. She didn't look good: even through the peephole I could see a small trickle of blood from her ear. I let her in, pulling down the blinds and switching on the light.  
"I am so terribly, terribly sorry," she whispered. "I didn't mean to put you into this position and I am eternally grateful to you for not saying anything."  
"Where's Stephen?"  
"I don't know. He's pretty much kept himself to himself since the receiving line fiasco."  
"Do you think the Empress knows why we really stopped in Shreveport?"  
"She might suspect what I'd been trying to do but she has no proof and I think she'd rather not know, to be honest. The Queen, though – well, that's another matter. Behind her fluffy haircut and Chanel suits, she's not a dummy. God knows who she has working for her up in Shreveport. Just be careful, trust no one, not even Sheriff Northman."  
I nodded.

"And just remember, Magdalena, you don't have to do anything you don't want to do. Do you understand? You can offer him your blood in exchange for his ... hospitality –" (protection, come on Ilaria, we both knew what was meant) "- but you are not obliged to give him anything else, nor should you feel pressured into taking his blood. Do you understand?"  
I nodded again and she pressed me to her, her bloody cheek up against mine.  
"Be careful, my child," she said, "And remember it's just three weeks. You'll be back here with us in no time and we can tell our majesties that it just didn't work out. The relationship ran its course."  
"Familiarity bred contempt," I suggested.  
She smiled wryly and slipped out the door, down the corridor on soundless bare feet, before any of her fellow vamps woke up to greet the twilight.


	13. XIII

I waited for Eric in the lobby. There were two other receptionists on duty, two men this time. They were vampires and they did not smile, they just surveyed the foyer with expressionless faces, their backs as straight as soldiers'. When Eric came out of the elevator, I stood up to go over to him but I was overtaken by a portly man, who ran up to him at a speed that belied his bulk. He thrust a key into Eric's hands and nodded, clasping his hands together obsequiously. Eric did not break his stride, causing the round little man to scuttle along beside him.

"Magdalena," he said to me curtly in greeting.  
"Eric," I answered in the same vein.  
"Thank you very much, Mr Caulton," Eric said to the man. "Your excellent service will be noted."  
"My pleasure, Sheriff Northman. Any time," the man assured him.

"Come," he said and took my suitcase with his own. Parked on the curb outside the hotel was a sleek black Audi.  
Eric pressed the keycard and the doors chirped.  
He stowed our cases in the back of the car and opened the passenger door for me. I slid inside. The car smelled brand new and the surfaces were pristine. My suspicion was confirmed when Eric got in beside me and spent several minutes adjusting the seat and mirrors.  
"Is this your car?" I asked.  
"It is now," he said.  
"Did you just buy it?"  
"Yup," he said. "You like?"  
"Yes, I like," I answered, "but what happened to your other car? Or didn't you have another car?"  
"I did but I traded it in an hour ago. Mr Caulton was happy to take it and give me a good deal on this model here."  
"Why did you need to buy a new car?" I really wanted to know.  
"Because the other one was bugged," he said. "Of course."  
Of course. The Queen of Louisiana probably had shares in a security equipment factory.

We set off. Eric drove confidently but fast. I wasn't entirely sure what the speed limit on Louisiana roads was, but he drove as though he were on a German autobahn and his German car purred under the challenge.  
While he drove, he asked me about where I was from and how I'd ended up in Moya's retinue. I gave him the bare bones of my backstory and asked him about his. He didn't say much about himself – but then, vampires rarely do. It's one of the reasons why we humans keep a database on them. They tend to like to forget the more salient details of their long existence. Instead, he told me how the United States had managed to rid itself of the Vampire Authority and their problems with the Hep V virus. I know he was skipping a lot of things I probably would've liked to know: he kept pausing and I could see the wheels turning in his head as he tried to figure out a way to tell me a lot without telling me much, if you know what I mean.

We lapsed into silence and my head lolled against the car window. Lulled by the sound of the car's smooth engine and the soft music on the radio, I drifted in and out of sleep. Eric drove without a stop, two hours, three hours ... and when I woke and stretched, I discovered that we were close to our destination. I yawned and tried to pluck up my courage: I felt we couldn't skirt the inevitable any longer.

"What's going to happen when we get to Shreveport?" I asked. "I mean, I know we're going to Fangtasia, but I mean after that. Where am I going to stay? What ...?"  
I couldn't finish the question because I didn't know what it was: what do you want from me? What do I have to do for you? What do we want to do with or to each other?  
He looked over at me, his big hands clutched and unclutched the steering wheel. Given the speed we were going at, I suddenly felt a bit scared.

"I think you should stay with Pam," he said. "I am not accustomed to having humans in my home. Pamela will provide you with her guest room and I will stay there on the nights when I take your blood or we have sex."  
My mouth opened and shut. The _cheek._  
"I will stay with Pamela, thank you very much. I will give you some blood, that's fine. But I'm not having sex with you - how often do I have to say it?"  
He raised his eyebrows. I was about to argue my point home when his finger tipped the indicator and we pulled off the interstate and started to drive through the city suburbs. I decided to leave it – no point in having a fight about something that had not happened and, if I had my way, simply would not.

Eric pushed the door of the Fangtasia back office open.  
Pam put down her phone when she saw him, her face lit up in almost childish delight.  
"Eric! You're here! So, did you bring me back a goody bag?"  
I stepped out of her maker's shadow.  
"Oh, goody," she said sarcastically. "A human. Can't have too many of them."  
Then she recognised me. "Where's Ilaria?" she asked in surprise.

Eric sat down behind the desk, swishing her off it with her hand, and Pamela stood between us, like a spectator at a tennis match, her head whipping from him to me and back.  
Saturday was obviously an important night for Fangtasia: not only was the place packed, but Pam was decked out in her full Vampire Barbie gear. This time she was wearing skin-tight leather pants and a bright pink t-shirt that had been ripped to shreds in all the right places. Her lipstick matched and her hair was loose but curled into an 80s-style halo around her head.

"What happened?" she asked.  
Sorting through the papers on his desk, Eric filled her in. After a few sentences in English, they switched to Swedish so they could fight in peace. Now it was my turn to look from one to the other.  
As my Swedish was limited to "Skoll!", I could only surmise that Pam was not happy with the general situation but, hey, who was? She lectured her maker for a couple of minutes and then ended with "... (unintelligible Swedish) sucky, (more Swedish) sucky (Swedish, Swedish) sucky."  
Eric emphatically denied it was sucky but in a vicious, biting tone.  
Pam was quiet, but I could tell she had lots more to say.

"Look," I said placatingly, "I know it sucks. It's sucky for everyone but let's make the best of it. We have no choice."  
They looked at me, wide-eyed, then they both started to laugh.  
"It is sucky," Eric agreed.  
Pamela looked at me pityingly. "Not 'sucky'," she said. "Sookie. As in, the name Sookie. She was the last little breather that wrapped Eric around her finger and when she was finished wrecking havoc on our lives – on our business – " she added, giving Eric the stink eye, "...she nearly brought about our ruin. This reminds me too much of the whole Sookie circus."  
I didn't know what to say to that, I just wondered what had become of this poor Sookie person. I wondered if she was still alive, or perhaps even living a dead existence with the vampires?

"Enough," Eric announced. "Pamela, Maggie will require the use of your spare room until she returns to New Orleans for the summit."  
"Nope," Pam said promptly. "Raë is renovating my apartment. I'm knocking through my bedroom into the spare room to make myself a suite. I'm spending the next two weeks in a coffin downstairs."  
Eric's mouth twitched. He turned to the door.  
"And don't bother asking Ginger," Pam said. "Her brother's visiting from Yellow Pine with his wife and two kiddiewinks, so that'll be a no. Hotel room or your place, take your pick."  
"Hotel room," I said immediately.  
He weighed it up and sighed. "A hotel room would be unwise. You can stay with me. If the Queen's little birds are watching us, it's only what they would expect I suppose."  
I pulled a face of displeasure but there wasn't much to be done. Equally unenthusiastic about our new status as roomies, Eric gathered up his keys and a sheaf of papers from his desk. I stood up and said goodnight to Pam with as much good grace as I could muster.

Her eyes were practically shining with delight. Her _schadenfreude_ was palpable.  
"Good night, dear lovers," she sang as we exited the office. "Now this, for sure, is really sucky!"  
We could hear her still cackling with glee, even as Eric closed the door.


	14. XIV

Eric Northman's house was surprising.  
Surprisingly normal, surprisingly suburban and unsurprisingly cold.  
I'd forgotten that vampires don't need central heating, so I shivered when I stepped through his front door. It probably wasn't warmer inside than it had been in his driveway.

"I'll turn on the heating," he said. "I just hope it works."  
He walked off, leaving me standing in the hall, so I looked around.  
It was very modern: the floorboards were stained black, the walls white. There were a lot of black and white photos of landscapes. Some of them looked Scandinavian, so I guessed they were places that the Northman knew.

As he still hadn't returned, I moved over to look into his living room.  
The house was spacious but not enormous – we'd passed plenty of huge, colonial-style houses on the way here, but Eric's was a bit bigger than my old house in Ireland, not a lot more. His was, however, far posher than mine, not least because it was set in the landscaped gardens of a gated community. His furnishings and fittings spoke of quality and taste. Many of the pieces of furniture that looked old probably were, remnants from his previous lives in other countries. 

I picked up a sheathed dagger on a side table, thinking it was a letter-opener. Withdrawing it, I saw the blade was razor sharp and the hilt well-worn. I turned it over in my hands and looked at its marking and then hastily put it back; it might've been as old as the vampire himself.

Eric returned and found me sitting gingerly on the edge of the couch, still shivering.  
"I'll make a fire," he said, "and while it's getting started, I'll show you the rest of the house."  
He set a fire in the large fireplace – thank God it wasn't just decorative – and led me into his pristine kitchen.  
"I'm afraid I have no food," he said. "And nothing to drink except TrueBlood."  
He opened the large fridge and showed me his neatly stacked stock of bottles.  
"Do you have water?" I asked, worried, but he leaned over and turned on the tap. It spluttered for a couple of seconds, then the water began to flow freely.  
I gulped down a glass, suddenly thirsty and very hungry.  
"I haven't eaten since yesterday afternoon," I said by way of explanation after I'd chugged the second glass. " _I'm starving._ "  
"That is most unfortunate," he said in an even tone.

He showed me the second reception room, which he used as some kind of office – at least, there was a huge, ornate wooden desk in its centre and shelves that held folders and files.  
We went up the stairs and he showed me his two spare bedrooms and told me to take my pick. Not particularly caring, I took the first because it had an en-suite bathroom.  
"And this is my room," he announced and flung open the door.  
I peeked in.  
One wall was lined with closets, fronted with a kind of opaque black glass. The curtains were drawn, but I knew they were drawn over a window with a light-tight blind. The bed was covered in a black throw that had some kind of thin silver thread running through it in a pinstripe pattern. Beside his bed, on the two black bedside tables, there was a stack of books and a little lamp. The room, like the rest of the house, was immaculate: even the books were stacked according to size, biggest on the bottom, smallest on the top.  
The room looked unlived in, sterile. Not my idea of a cosy resting place.

Eric raised an eyebrow at me enquiringly but I backed out of the room quickly, just in case he mistook my interest in his interior decoration for interest in something else. 

We went downstairs and, to my relief, the living room was actually getting warm. The fire was still small but blazing bravely. I sat down on the couch again and he sat down beside me, leaning back against the cushions and stretching his long arms out so one of them rested behind my shoulder-blades. I felt a momentary desire to lean back and rest my head on his arm, but I was quiet and it passed.

"I, too, am hungry," he said and his fangs clicked out.  
His fingers gently stroked my shoulder.  
I steeled myself for battle.  
"I haven't eaten in about twelve hours," I said. "All I've had was those two glasses of water. I'd really appreciate it if we could wait until tomorrow. Maybe you could just have a True Blood for now?"  
There was a tiny note of pleading to my voice but I couldn't hush it. 

I was just too tired and too weary to have a great big Viking chomping away at me. Eric looked at me and abruptly, his fingers were still.  
"Very well," he said, all business-like. "I will arrange for someone to take you shopping tomorrow so you can buy food. And anything else that you need – I'm sure there are plenty of articles that you will require for your human maintenance that I do not have in my home. Tomorrow evening, though, I will have your blood."  
"Fine." 

That was fair. If I had to pay rent in haemoglobin, that was okay by me.  
I said goodnight – no need for fake kisses now – and he carried my suitcase upstairs to the room I'd chosen. Eric Northman, for all his faults, was a gentleman. I brushed my teeth, perched on the loo for a wee – was my bottom the first to every use these facilities? Very probably, by the looks of things - and then discovered that vampires never remember toilet paper: I rolled my eyes at my own stupidity, every human visiting a vampire home should have a wad of tissues stashed on their person. I rooted around in my pockets and found a crumpled one that would do. Before falling asleep, I made a shopping list and put 'toilet paper' at the top.  
And underlined it twice.

\- - -

I was up early the next day and I used the time to snoop around Eric's home.  
I didn't go through his personal things, of course, but I looked at his pictures, I examined the books on his shelves. I opened every cupboard and drawer in the kitchen and discovered it stocked with what was probably some kind of Ikea starter set: six bowls, six plates, six cups, six saucers, a set of cutlery. Only the glasses and the microwave showed any sign of use. 

As I feared, there was nothing to eat in the kitchen. Not a bean. Literally, not a bean, not a crumb, not some forgotten Twinkie, left behind by a realtor years ago when Eric had bought the house. My stomach was starting to seriously rumble when the doorbell rang. I started, then went to answer it, hoping this was the person who was going to take me somewhere to get food.

It was. I opened the door to a muscular young man in his early twenties. He was wearing a heavy winter jacket and was chewing gum. He greeted me with a polite, "Ma'am."

I was never sure how to reply to the Southern "ma'aming", so I just stepped aside to let him come in, looking at him up and down as he passed. He had the kind of tan anyone would envy in deep winter and tawny greeny-brown slanted eyes above broad cheekbones. His hair was cut short but I could see that if it was allowed to grow, it would fall very black and straight. I found myself wondering if he had Native American blood. I didn't want to stare but it was hard not to: he was very attractive. And breathing, and warm-blooded. These were all huge positives in my book. Of course, he was also about a decade younger than me, but maybe he liked older women?

All the while I was taking him in, he was staring at me with equally unashamed curiosity. Suddenly, he thrust his hand out and said, "I'm TJ."  
"Maggie," I said. He smiled – in fact, he looked like a man who smiled a lot.  
"Mr N said you needed to pick up a few things?" he asked and I nodded in confirmation.  
He reached past me and I caught his scent briefly. Still grinning, he picked up the car keys out of a bowl on the side table.  
"Mr Northman said I could take his car," he said happily. "Man, what a sweet ride."  
"Please don't scratch it or damage it in any way. Or he'll kill you."  
It was not an idle threat, I was certain the vampire would be sorely tempted if this TJ messed up the sweet ride.  
"'Course not," he said, still grinning.

He did, in fact, drive carefully. He spent the first five minutes making near-orgasmic noises about the car, pressing buttons to open windows and adjust settings. It made me laugh, the moaning of delight at the automatic seat-warmers and intelligent sat nav system. TJ laughed with me - this guy really was a ray of sunshine after a month in the company of earnest and dour vampires.  
"So I hear you're a carrier," he said conversationally as we drove off. "Don't get many of them around here. Is it true that you can smell the vamps?"  
"Yes, it's true," I said. I tried to explain it. "It's not just a smell, though, it can be a sensation or an idea of warmth. You know the smell in the air at the start of September, when the first rains come after the summer? That kind of thing. It's a smell, but it's more. Like a feeling."

"And can you smell us?" he asked. "Can you smell me?"  
I hesitated. "I think I can identify humans better than most by their smell, but not all of them. I can get your scent though. It's very ... " I tried to be tactful. "It's unusual."  
"I'm aware," he grinned. "Sorry about that."  
I didn't want to dwell on matters of personal hygiene. It seemed rude.  
"So what do you want to do first?"  
I looked at my watch. "Is there anywhere I can get breakfast? Or lunch?"  
It was close to midday.  
"Sure," he said easily and looking briefly into each of the mirrors and then over his shoulder, he did a U-turn, ending up on the other side of the road, going in the direction we came from.  
I shrieked and this made him laugh again.  
"Hey, not a scratch!" he said.

He took me to a diner and I ordered the all-day breakfast. TJ looked studiously out the window but I knew he would eat, too, so I encouraged him to join me. He ordered the same and when it came, we happily tucked in.   
I ate bacon and eggs and fried tomatoes, and had a lot of toast.   
A lot of it.  
I used it to wipe the grease off the plate, then sat back to watch TJ finishing his. He had ordered a side of fries as well, which he polished off at record speed, then leaned back against his seat, a hand resting on his full stomach. We raised our mugs of coffee in a mock-salute to each other and settled into the busy work of digesting.

"So how do you know Eric?" I asked. "Do you work for him?"  
TJ's face darkened a fraction.  
"My family owes him," he said. "So I gotta run his errands whenever he calls. Not that I'm complaining about this one," he added quickly, the charmer.  
"What did he do for your family?"  
TJ shrugged. "He's given protection to a lot of families in the were community, especially after they chose a packmaster that a lot of us weren't too keen on."  
Something clicked in my brain.  
"In the were community?" I repeated.  
"Yeah," he said. "Like I told you: I'm a were."

How _embarrassing_.  
I thought he'd just said that he was aware that he smelled funny.  
And he did.  
Now I understood why he didn't smell quite human but also not vampire: he had a faint but distinctly heavy, musky smell. I'd never smelled anything like it before.  
"Don't you have weres in Ireland?" he asked.  
"No," I said. "We haven't had wild wolves in at least a century and a half, so the weres died out or moved away. As far as I know, there are some living in Eastern Europe and Russia, places where wolves still roam. But not in the British Isles."  
His grin got wider. "So I'm your first were?" he asked proudly. "That's so cool."  
He had no idea. 

I peppered him with questions and he answered them all patiently. When we'd both reached a stage where we could once more move, we slid off the diner benches and I paid the check.  
"Can you turn, just a bit, so I can see?" I begged. "Like, a hairy paw or a tail or something?"  
TJ laughed out loud, his tawny eyes disappeared into slits of mirth.  
"It doesn't work like that," he said. "But if you're still here come full moon, I'll come howl outside your window. Deal?"  
"Deal," I said.

I bought food – just fruit, milk, bread, butter, ham and cheese – and some perishables. I had a couple of packets of pasta and a jar of pesto in my hand when I remembered that pesto was pretty garlic-laden. So I took a jar of tomato sauce instead. I also stocked up on cookies and chocolate. In fact, I went a bit crazy in the sweeties section but, to be fair, TJ aided and abetted me.  
"Try this," he said. "And this. And this. And these are soft-bake cookies, have you ever tried them? What do you mean, you don't have them in Ireland? You gotta try them!"

\- - - 

By the time we got back to Eric's house, TJ felt like an old pal.  
"Call me if you need anything," he said. "We should totally go to that pancake place I was telling you about. You'd love it."  
_Why was he so young?_ I moaned inwardly as I shut the front door.  
He waved as he drove away in his battered little car and I replaced Eric's keys in the bowl. He was gorgeous, he was polite, he loved his food.  
He was, in sum, the perfect man.  
But young enough to be my little brother.

The house seemed so quiet when TJ was gone, so I nipped upstairs and got my laptop. I set it up on the kitchen table and logged on to my Netflix account and started to watch 'The Hunger Games' while I made myself a sandwich and ate some apple slices. I was so engrossed that I didn't notice Eric come in till he was standing in front of me.

"God almighty!" I shrieked.

He was wearing a pair of black jeans and a tight grey t-shirt. It stretched across his chest so I could see the rise and fall of his muscles.  
I looked away.  
TJ was not much taller than I and he looked like a guy that worked out, but Eric Northman was tall and rangy and his body looked like one that had grown rock-hard by sheer dint of physical work.  
I felt a bit flustered.

"God almighty? Not quite," he said drily. "Why are you watching your movie in here? Is my living room not comfortable enough?"  
His living room was comfortable in a show-room kind of way, but I didn't want to say that.  
The kitchen was the only room in the house that bore no trace of the house's owner and I felt most comfortable there. Reluctantly, I paused the film and closed my laptop, following him back into the living room. I knew what was coming next and the prospect didn't fill me with delight.

"So you have been fed?" he asked politely. "And it was sufficient? Mr Knight was helpful, I take it?"  
Mr Knight was TJ, I presumed, so I agreed that he had been very helpful and that I was stuffed full to the gills. Eric was very pleased, especially when I confessed that I'd eaten an obscene amount of cookies.

"I've always wondered why humans love them so much," he said. "Now I might know."  
He sank down on the couch, turning sideways so he could stretch a leg along its length and leave the other on the floor, creating a V of space in between.  
"Come here, Maggie," he said.  
_Here, kitty, kitty, kitty_ , I thought. _Come here, pussycat!_

I placed myself between his legs, clenching my butt cheeks so tight, I barely made contact with the couch. I'd braided and tied my long hair up that morning, but I swept aside some hairs that had come loose.  
"You're so tense," he said. "Do you know what would help you relax?"  
I sighed.  
"Shut up and get it over with," I said. 

Then I heard the familiar click of fangs and he sank his teeth in.  
Like the last time, it hurt like fury when he broke skin but after a couple of minutes it was tolerable. After a couple of more minutes it was very pleasant – for him. He pulled me in closer and one of his large hands drifted gently down from my shoulder and over my breast. It was a movement so soft, it brushed my nipple like a feather and it – traitor – responded by hardening. He moaned into my neck and the hand returned.

I found myself gulping for air, as one hand continued to cup my breast and the other stroked my arm tenderly.  
"Stop it," I gasped. "Enough."  
He ignored me. I tugged at his hair, but it made no difference.  
I started to sharply flick his forehead, his cheek, the side of his head – anything I could reach – with my fingers and after a few seconds he pulled away, confused. I used the opportunity and jumped up.  
"That's enough," I said. I was trying to sound stern, authorative, but my voice was shaky. 

He just smiled at me from the couch, making no attempt to hide the fact that he was, well, in the mood.  
"You can feed from me," I said crossly, "but you cannot ... _maul_ me like that."  
"Why not? You like it."  
"If I say no, it means _no_. No touching, no sex. Why can't you understand that?"  
"I can't understand it," he said. "We are going to have sex at some point. I'm just trying to show you that sooner would be better than later."

To be fair to him, he looked genuinely perplexed.  
Sex for vampires is no biggie, so many of them simply lack a basic understanding of why a person might not want to hop into the sack with a total stranger. Ilaria explained it to me once: many vampires have forgotten the concept of intimacy. Having an intimate relationship is something they do not do and they don't understand why some humans would want one. It's a very basic, very different way of perceiving the world and I – call me old-fashioned or prudish – had never been the type to hook up with someone I didn't know or trust, and I didn't want to start now.

Okay, following those few minutes on the couch, I actually did.  
But I was trying my best to follow some kind of moral line here, even if that line looked like one drawn by a toddler with a crayon.

"Are you aware that what you are doing constitutes sexual harassment?" I snapped, perhaps a bit more sharply than needed be. "And in case that's a foreign concept to you, it's a little something we little womenfolk came up with in the last century to describe how we feel when creepy guys like you keep bothering us for sexual favours. Get a grip, Eric."  
"I am not sexually harassing you," he said, sounding puzzled. "I am stating a fact. We will sleep together. Eventually."  
He stood up, pretending to stretch his arms over his head, so I could have a good view of ... you know, all of him.

"What if I don't want to?" I asked.  
"Eventually, though, you will."  
"I don't think so."  
"You might need more of my blood, but then you will think so."  
"I'd need a transfusion of your blood, Eric," I said. "A couple of litres of the stuff."  
"Okay," he said easily.  
I began to feel really irritated.  
"Listen," I said, "you can't force me to have sex with you."  
"Actually, I'm not forcing you but we both know I could. And if I did," he said, in the same unperturbed tone, "who would you complain to? My Queen? Your Empress? The police?"  
He leaned against the doorway with a politely curious look on his face. It took me a second or two to process what he was saying. He was right – who could I go to? Who would help me? No one, that's who.

"However," he added, "I do not intend to force you. I am, as I said, just stating a fact. Given our circumstances, we will eventually sleep together. If I wanted to force you, I would've done it long before now. Get a grip, Magdalena."  
The words sounded odd coming out of his mouth.

I got a grip.  
I got up and walked out of the room and started up the stairs.  
Halfway up, my temper snapped and I stopped.  
This was precisely why I had chosen not to make a living in vampire employ, because being around them was a gigantic pain in the neck. They have no sense of propriety, so sense of personal space. For all of their so-called mainstreaming, they could never manage to see humans as equals. For many of them, we still constituted nothing more than some kind of pet: requiring slightly more effort than a cat and far less walking than a dog.

Marching back down the stairs, my rage growing with each step, I stomped back into his living room. Eric was still leaning, motionless, against the doorway, his face downwards in vampire stand-by mode.

"FINE!" I shouted. "Let's have sex!"  
His eyes flickered back to life. "What?" he asked.  
"Sex," I said. I leaned over and smacked his bum. "Come on, you wanted it. Let's get the damn thing over with. Let's bang uglies. Get yours out, Northman."

I used the toe of one shoe to wriggle out of the other, pulling off my socks.  
I followed it with my pullover and my t-shirt, which I flung angrily at him. I stood facing him, barefoot, in my bra.  
"COME ON!" I shouted. "Mush, mush! I haven't got all fucking day! I'm in the middle of watching the Hunger Games on Netflix, I don't have time to waste."

His eyes opened wide and he started to shed clothes.  
I stood by and made something that approximated appreciative noises: "Nice backside. You're a bit skinny but I can work with that. Wow, your feet are weird-looking."  
My voice sounded slightly manic and I started to laugh at the preposterousness of the situation.  
Eric paused, his fingers hooked in the band of his underpants.  
He was staring at me, not sure why I was laughing. Or what I was laughing at.  
"Well?" I said. "Get on with it, vampire. Stop stalling."  
Pointedly, I looked at my watch and tapped the glass.  
He stripped down. He seemed - well, less excited by the prospect now that I was offering it to him on a plate. He moved towards me and I felt his nearness as a chill, his cold hand reached up to cup my cheek and he leaned in to kiss me.  
I ducked out of his grip.  
"Oh, _please_ ," I said scornfully. "We're going to shag. Spare me the rest of it."

Eric stopped and jutted out his lower jaw.  
"What are you doing?" he said.

I pretended I didn't understand, tilting my head to one side, considering the question.  
"We're having sex," I said in the kind of voice you might use with the hard of hearing. "As it's apparently inevitable, I'm resigning myself to my fate and we're going to bonk each other's brains out. Then I'm going to finish a bag of chocolate mint cookies and watch Jennifer Lawrence overthrow a dystopian dictatorship. Frankly, I know which part I'm looking forward to."  
Eric stared at me through narrowed eyes, then he turned and bent to pick up the t-shirt he'd flung on the floor.

"Nice view," I remarked.  
He spun around, clutching his clothes to his chest.  
"Okay." The word was short, defensive. "Forget about it. No sex."  
"Ah, come on," I wheedled. "Just a little shag. A teeny-tiny banging of boots. I'll throw you down on the couch and bounce around on your bits for a while. You'll barely notice I'm there."  
He scooped up his pants and shoes.  
"I get it," he said. "I understand. Point taken."  
He left the room as haughtily as a naked man can with a bundle of clothes under his arm.

I laughed till I had a pain in my side, then I went up to my room.  
I heard the front door slam and the sound of his car start up. I peered out the window just as his head turned to look up. I blew him a kiss; he revved the engine and drove off.  
That only made me laugh some more.  
Round one to me, I thought.  
I grabbed the bag of cookies and went downstairs to finish the film.


	15. XV

Pamela de Beaufort didn't like serving anyone.  
She'd done enough of it in her human life; her vampire life was worth more than that.  
When it was up to her, she positioned herself between the door of Fangtasia and the velvet rope that cordoned off its inner entrance, deciding who she would allow in and who she would kick out into the cold. This evening, however, she had little choice but to plant herself behind the bar between Ginger and the new bartender, Evie, to prevent the outbreak of World War III.

Hiring Evie had been a good move, at least, that was what Pamela'd thought: she was a vampire, albeit a very young one, barely turned three years, and a trained barkeeper. She worked quickly and efficiently behind the counter, wiping surfaces, washing glasses, swiftly sweeping up her tips into the pocket of her tight jeans.  
But she hated Ginger.  
While Evie was quick and sharp, Ginger was slow and lazy. Ginger's side of the bar was sticky with uncleaned stains, she liked to lean on the counter, talking to the male customers and swatting them playfully with a napkin. The female patrons got served more slowly or not at all, because Ginger tended to ignore them, and when she was put under pressure on a busy night, she got flustered and forgot to give change or mixed up drinks.

Pamela knew that she should demote her back to bussing the dirty glasses, but Ginger had been at Fangtasia long enough to have earned regular shifts behind the bar. And Pam – to her severe annoyance – found she had a sense of … what was it again? …oh, yes: loyalty to the little blond woman.  
If one of them had to leave it would have to be – Pamela sighed. _What has happened to me?_ , she wondered – it would have to be the nice, new, efficient barkeeper that knew how to do basic math in her head and seldom gave a customer too little change in return.

In an attempt to mitigate the circumstances, Pam was taking a shift behind the bar till the third bartender, Devon, came to work at ten. The two women hissed at each other when they met at the TrueBlood fridge, and Evie made pointed remarks about how she'd served three times as many customers as Ginger since they started their shift (probably true, Pamela hated to admit), but for the most part, the de Beaufort Wall was working out okay.

Shortly before ten, Eric came in.  
If he was surprised to see her behind the bar, he gave no sign of it. He just nodded his head in acknowledgement and ascended the stage in a few long strides.  
He seemed restless to Pam: she watched him shift in his chair, stretching and moving his legs. So Pamela observed him carefully, turning glasses in the cloth in her hands. She wondered what was happening with his little Irishwoman, Ilaria's godchild. Pam had spent the evening waiting for Ilaria to return her call, but there had been no reply, so Pam had to try to decipher and interpret what Eric's fidgeting meant herself. The Kennick wasn't unattractive: she had that Celtic colouring, pale skin, large grey eyes and hair that was somewhere between auburn and carrot. Of course, Eric was deeply distrustful of red hair – something about red-haired women being burnt at the stake in his day – but Pamela thought the girl was perfectly acceptable: slim and curvy.  
What more did he want?

More, obviously.  
As Pamela watched, he leaned down to signal the brunette who'd been gyrating in front of the stage since he'd taken his seat. The woman scrambled up on stage, her skin-tight mini-dress rucking up to expose her thong as she hurried up the steps.

"Whore," Ginger muttered. "Who wears a dress like that? Trashy trailer trash, that's who."  
Pam shifted her view sideways to Ginger, who was wearing denim cut-offs so short that her boss could see the cheeks of her behind when she bent to pick up a glass.  
They both watched as Eric left the stage, his arm outstretched behind him. The dark-haired woman was clutching his hand excitedly, waving at her girlfriends as he led her away through the door that led to his office.  
"I'm tellin' ya," Ginger said, slapping the bar-top with a cleaning rag. "She's a whore."

Pamela served two True Bloods with a little more violence than was necessary, suddenly annoyed.  
She looked around the bar for Devon and started when she realized he was at her elbow. Not many people could sneak up on a vampire, but Devon was a person of such intrinsic quiet that his every move seemed like stealth. He was a tall, heavyset black man with thick glasses and, by sheer virtue of his bulk, he prevented Ginger and Evie from interacting: they had to stand on their tiptoes to see over Devon's shoulders.  
"Take over," Pam ordered, "And keep these two bitches from each other's throats."

She slipped out from behind the bar and made her way to the office.  
She paused at the door, one hand on the doorknob. She didn't have to put her ear to the door to hear what was happening. The dark-haired woman was clearly very excitable and was commentating the sex act like the soundtrack to a bad porn film: "Yes, oh yes! Come here, big boy! Yes! Come to your babydoll!"  
Pam smirked and made fake-vomiting noises, even though there was no one there to see.  
Eric was probably _hating_ it – gushing loquacity was never his thing, never less than when he was trying to take a woman.  
_Serves him right_ , Pam thought.  
She'd been inclined to burst in on them and interrupt their tryst but now she saw more punishment in letting him endure the brunette's enthusiastic cheer-leading instead.

The office phone began to ring.  
Pam waited to hear if Eric would answer it: while most of the calls were from tourists looking for directions to Fangtasia ("Download Google fucking Maps!"), there were plenty of calls that had to do with Eric's role of Sheriff of Area Five and, particularly with the vampire summit taking place in New Orleans, Pam thought he might be more inclined to take the call – but apparently he wasn't.  
The woman shrieked her climax: "Yes! Yes! YES!" and the phone stopped.  
Pam turned on her heel to return to the bar, and then it started to ring again.  
She waited to see if Eric would answer it. He didn't.  
The phone rang and rang. And rang some more.

She couldn't stand it.  
Pam flung open the door, marched past the naked woman on the couch, who shrieked and tried to cover herself with her scrap of a dress, and made a point of pushing Eric to one side so she could lean over to pick up the phone.  
"Fangtasia, the bar with a bite," she drawled, glaring at Eric, who just shrugged and continued to do up the buttons on his black shirt.

The door of the office opened again and Ginger came crashing in, waving her arms in the air and nearly knocking down the shelf by the door that was stocked with bottles and boxes.  
"I'm NOT working with her ANY MORE!" she yelled. "She's a BITCH and a THIEF and she STOLE my tips!"  
The woman on the couch hopped up with a shriek and tried to pull the dress over her head. Ginger ignored her and turned to Eric, who in turn ignored Ginger.  
"Yes?" Pam said into the receiver.  
"Pam?" the voice was soft, shaky. "It's Maggie Kennick. Is Eric there? I mean, I don't want to talk to him, I just want to know if he's there."  
"If this is what you consider stalking," Pam said, "it's a really poor attempt. Of course he's here. Why?"  
The door burst open again and Evie stormed in, her small fangs extended.  
"You stole my TIPS!" hollered Ginger. "Whore!"  
"Trailer trash!" Evie sneered.

The brunette slid on to her knees on the floor, peering under the couch – probably looking for her underwear, such as it was.  
Evie and Ginger were circling each other, making stabbing motions in the air, while Eric tied his shoelaces, the picture of calm.  
Pam put a hand over her free ear to block out the noise and said, "Why are you phoning, Maggie?"  
"I just saw a face at the window," she whispered.  
"What?" Pam repeated.

Eric snatched the phone off her.  
"She just saw a face at the window," Pam said. "Stupid girl probably saw a bird. Or the moon."  
Her maker narrowed his eyes and turned his back on the cacophony.  
"You'll have to speak up," he said into the receiver. "I'm standing in a room full of hysterical women."

Pam bundled Ginger and Evie back behind the bar and gave Devon strict orders to keep them there. Then she sent the dark-haired woman off the ladies' room, her underwear in her hand, to set her clothing to rights. Before she could walk away, Pam grabbed her by the arm and glamoured her. She didn't need this woman back in the bar every evening, pining and making cow eyes at Eric from the bottom of the stage. When she got back to the office, Eric was already in his jacket and pocketing his car keys.

"Good," he said curtly. "I might need you. Can you leave the bar without those two tearing each other's eyes out?"  
"Devon is on it," Pam answered. "Why are you rushing off to help her? Tell her to chill, you'll be home in a couple of hours. She thinks she saw a face at the window, for crying out loud. It was probably one of the maintenance guys, looking to see why the light was on."  
"It wasn't a maintenance guy," he said, handing Pam her jacket from the coat stand behind him. "It was a vampire."  
"How do you know?"  
Eric looked at her and gave her a wry smile.  
"It was an upstairs window," he said.

\- - - 

When they got to the house, the lights were off. Maggie must've been standing in the hall waiting for them because she was at the foot of the stairs when Eric opened the door. Her normally pale skin was as white as a vampire's, the sprinkling of freckles across her nose and cheekbones looked dark against her pallor.

"What happened?" Eric asked. Pamela noticed they made no attempt to approach each other, standing a couple of metres apart like wary opponents.  
"I was Skyping my Uncle James and I just lost reception for a minute or two. When my laptop got a signal again, he was offline, so I decided to record a video message for him to tell him I'd call him later."  
"And then you looked out the window?" Eric asked.  
"No," she said. "I was recording the message when I saw the face at the window behind me. I saw it on the computer screen. I have it on my laptop, I've watched it a dozen times, it's definitely a face."  
"Show me," Eric ordered and they followed her into the living room, where the laptop stood open on the table.  
Maggie pressed a couple of buttons and then stood back to allow the two vampires to look at the screen.

The video was recorded in Eric's spare room. Maggie had been sitting cross-legged on the bed, the laptop on her knees. Behind her the curtains were half-pulled, the upper part of the window open to let in the night air.  
"Hi James," she said in the video. "I'm going to go to bed now, so we can chat again later. I'll call you to – "  
The face at the window.  
She was right: it was definitely a face. It appeared at the window for a second, a flash of white, then it disappeared.  
"Pause it," Pam said, but when Maggie paused it, but the video – not good quality to begin with – appeared unfocussed and pixellated. It was a pale face in the darkness, no doubt about that, and probably a man.

"How did he get up there?" Maggie asked fearfully.  
"He flew," Eric said.  
"Flew?" Maggie repeated.  
In answer, Eric levitated off the ground a couple of inches.  
"Holy shit. A flying vampire. If that's not the stuff of nightmares, I don't know what is." Maggie looked a bit queasy. "I'd heard there were some who could but I didn't think – I didn't know …"  
She appeared unable to finish the thought.  
"What's your superpower, then?" she asked Pam.  
"My biting wit," Pam flashed back.

Maggie grinned at her. She had a pleasant face, Pam thought, but when she smiled, her features lit up with her mischievous grin. And even though she was clearly frightened to death, the Kennick girl couldn't keep a straight face.

Eric clicked at buttons, then straightened up.  
"I'll have to send this to someone more skilled than either of us with the computer. This might need facial recognition software, or whatever they call it, to give us a clearer picture of who it is. It could be one of Queen Catherine's lackeys, sent to see what you're up to – or maybe one of your Empress's. In the meantime, however, I will stay with you and make sure the house is not breached. A vampire can enter my home, so you're not safe here by yourself."  
"Thank you," Maggie said. It sounded surprised, sincere. "I really appreciate it, Eric."

He nodded, but the carrier reached out and gently touched the back of his hand with her fingertips. Eric stood stock-still, his eyes widened a fraction at her touch. Pam tilted her head, looking from her maker to the woman in front of her.  
"Sorry about earlier on," Maggie murmured and let her hand fall.  
Eric pulled his hand back, as though he were shaking off her touch.  
"It's okay," he said and then, more briskly, "Pam – will you close up? I'll call by tomorrow night when we clear up what has happened here."  
"Fine, fine," she said. "I know when I'm not needed."  
"You don't have to leave on my account," Maggie said. "I was just going to bed. If that's okay?" she turned to Eric.  
"Fine," he said. "I will see you when I wake."  
They looked at each other, then Maggie ducked her head.  
They made no attempt to touch each other or move closer and certainly no goodnight kisses were exchanged.  
Pam's curiosity was piqued.

Through the arch that led to the hall, Pam watched the woman walk up the stairs, her head bowed and the laptop under her arm.  
Pam looked at her maker; he was deep in thought, clicking a thumbnail against his teeth.  
"What do you think?" she asked him.  
"To quote our favourite Irishwoman," Eric replied, "I think it's sucky. I don't like the situation at all, but there's not much we can do right now. I'll have TJ phone around tomorrow and see if there's anyone between here and Dallas who can help me out."  
Pam couldn't stop herself.  
"And what do you think of her?" she asked, nodding in the direction of the stairs.  
Eric looked up and then pretended to look at his watch.  
"She's ... unusual," he said at last.  
"I've noticed," Pam answered. "She might be good for you. Nice bit of company."  
"Yeah," said Eric, the one syllable laden with – what was it? Sarcasm? Scepticism? Pam couldn't decide.  
He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. Pam returned the embrace, squeezing his arm a little bit.  
"Good night, Miss de Beaufort," he said.  
"Good night, Mr Northman."  


\- - - 

When Pam rose the next evening, there was a message on her phone.  
"It's Magdalena Kennick," she said. "Sorry to bother you with more problems, Pamela, but I've got bad news. Stephen phoned me to say that Ilaria is gone. She's disappeared, they have no idea where she is. The Queen thinks something bad might have happened. Please come over to Eric's house when you wake."  
Pam shuddered. What did humans call it? The feeling that someone had walked over her grave.  
She knew instinctively that things had just gone from bad to much, much worse.

_Thank you for reading along. If you like what you're reading, please feel free to leave a quick comment to say hello, so I know I'm not sending this out into the dark abyss of cyberspace ;-)_


	16. XVI

XVI

**Regensburg**  
**Bavaria, Germany**  
**1353**

"Eric?"  
He turned. Godric was sitting beside him on a large stone that had been dragged into place for the stonemasons to work on.  
Night had fallen but there was still a lot of activity around the square: the building site by the cathedral had been half-heartedly fenced off to the public, but young men and women of less than stellar repute were sitting on the stones, exchanging jeers and jokes. Two _Gaukler_ – jugglers in ragged clothes – were tossing their little leather balls with speed and skill by the light of a torch held up by an equally ragged young woman.

"Eric, we will stay here," Godric decided.  
Eric nodded.  
They had travelled slowly south over several lifetimes, moving from one large town to the next, from one building site to the next one. Godric, calling himself Gottfried, had found work transcribing manuscripts, making copies of stonemason's plans or tallying the wages owed to the masons and builders. Sometimes he passed himself off as a monk, Brother Gottfried or Brother Godfrey from England, sometimes he was simply a boy who could read and write and was willing to work for pittance. Godric wanted to be where the plans were drawn: at night he climbed over half-built walls and pored over the chief stonemason's drawings, trying to understand the numbers and lines that represented the plans for the cathedral's ground and elevation.

Eric followed his maker willingly, but he was not interested in this succession of building projects.  
They were heading towards the great mountains in the south, the Alps, beyond which there was a country full of wonders, the home of what was once a tribe of warriors that Godric called the Romans.  
They had been legion, Godric said, they had built temples and theatres and aqueducts; they had marched on foot and conquered all of the known world, even managing to tame the Western Isles, long before the Vikings put their feet on British and Irish soil.  
Eric wanted to see these warriors; he was sick to the teeth of monks and masons, sculptors and glassmakers. He wanted once again to be among men who fought. But Godric kept telling him that the Romans themselves were long gone, nothing remained but their buildings.  
"See, Eric," he'd said. "Long after these humans have turned to dust, their buildings survive. These cathedrals will still stand when we, too, are dust."

Eric had been impressed at first: with every decade that passed in his vampire life, he saw more and more wonders.  
He watched as men worked to find ways to create buildings that stretched to the sky to worship their Christian god, the weakling who let himself be crucified instead of using his power to smite and kill his enemies. They had stopped in Bamberg for a decade, leaving only when they could no longer explain why Godric looked much the same as he did when they arrived. Eric, being older, could pass without much notice being taken, but Godric remained an eternal man-child and people had begun to whisper. Godric had heard that another cathedral was being erected further south in Regensburg, in a daring and modern style, so they set off on foot and arrived just before their Viking _Jul_ , or Christmas, the time when the people celebrated the birth of their Christchild. 

The city of Regensburg was small and prosperous, built on to the banks of the River Danube. In the depths of winter, the wide river rushed with such a force through the centre of the city that it made Eric heartsick for the sea, for a boat. It had been a long time since they had been near the coast, winding their way down through the centre of the European continent. Beyond the Alps lay a sea, Godric had promised. A warm, blue sea, unlike any Eric had seen before.  
Eric couldn't wait; in the meantime he watched the little boats navigate under the great Stone Bridge that arched across the river, wishing he was at the helm of one of them.

The cathedral in Regensburg was smaller than many they had worked on already, but it had windows of coloured glass unlike any they had seen before. The windows were as tall as a tree: when the full moon shone through them, the colours lit up and danced like the kind of hues the two vampires only remembered from their human lives. For the two or three nights when the moon was at its zenith, they had sneaked into the cathedral in the dead of night, standing under its vaulted ceilings and looking at the stained glass.

Eric saw the girl first, but she wasn't looking at him, she was looking at Godric.  
At speed, Eric dragged her down, his large hand clamped over her mouth. She shrieked and wriggled till he threw her down on the ground before Godric, then she started to cry.  
"You cannot harm me in a house of prayer, not with God and his angels as my witness!" she sobbed.  
"We care naught for your god or his angels," Eric growled, "And this place is not holy to us."  
"Eric," Godric chided softly. He helped the girl to her feet.  
Godric was not tall, but next to him, she was smaller still. Her hair was tied up under a modest white veil, showing only the smallest amount of white-blond hair, and she wore a mantle of good woollen cloth: she wasn't a prostitute, that much was for sure. She had the stature of a young girl but her face was older – she might've been seventeen or eighteen at most.

"What are you doing in here?" he asked. She wiped her eyes with her sleeves.  
"I was praying," she said. "I always come here to pray when I cannot sleep."  
"How did you get in?" Eric asked gruffly. They had scoured walls and let themselves into an upper window in a part of the cathedral still being constructed.  
"I have a key," she said and showed them the key tucked into her long sleeve. "My father is one of the glassmakers. They have a key for one of the side doors."  
Godric's face lit up. "Your father worked on these?" he said with a swooping motion.  
The girl's eyes followed his hand and nodded.  
"That one," she said, and pointed towards the window behind him.  
Godric sighed with pleasure and she smiled, a sweet smile that looked only prettier with her tear-stained cheeks. Eric looked at his maker, alarmed: Godric was smiling back, his gaze fixed on the woman-child as though she were more beautiful than the coloured windows.

He took her hand. "I am Gottfried," he said. "What's your name?"  
The girl blushed and squirmed but did not pull her hand away. "My name is Hildegard," she said. "But my family call me Hildi."  
"Will you sit with me, Hildi?" Godric asked softly.  
She looked up at him from under her lashes, her dark eyes hardly able to meet his.  
"Yes," she whispered.  
Godric looked at Eric and nodded curtly at the way they'd come in. Eric was at once both relieved and annoyed – relieved to be able to get out and away from this dreary place, but annoyed that his maker was staying behind to make cow eyes at the glassmaker's girl. He took a few strides into the darkness and leapt up behind one of the columns to scramble up towards the ceiling and out into the crisp night air. When he looked down, Godric and Hildi were sitting side by side on a stone step, his dark head touching her blond one.  
And Godric was still holding her hand.

x x x

Eric and Godric had found shelter in the crypt of a church.  
They'd flung the bones from a couple of stone tombs into a third so they could find rest during the day. Godric could fit into any vault, but few men were as tall as Eric in life and fewer still as tall as him in death, so he was always forced to lie in the coffins in a near-foetal position, his long legs drawn up towards his chest. Normally this was reason enough to rise the very minute the sun went down behind the horizon, with Godric following slowly when he felt rested enough. Since meeting the girl, however, Eric was waking to find Godric already up, daring to chance the last rays of weak winter light in order to be with her sooner. She apparently never asked why they could not see each other during the day; she simply accepted that they both had to work till sundown. She was the eldest girl in a large family, so she was busy washing and cleaning and cooking till her father and brothers returned from work on the cathedral in the evening. After the evening meal, she pretended to go to bed, sneaking out when the rest of the family were asleep, and slipping into the cathedral with her stolen key.

"Have you slept with her?" Eric asked one evening when they rose.  
They were halfway through Advent and the first snow had fallen. They'd been in Regensburg for nearly a fortnight; Eric thought it was high time his master had the girl and moved on.  
He was unprepared for the venom with which Godric answered, "Of course not!", as though the thought of besmirching the girl was not even to cross Eric's lips.

They were standing in the crypt, ready to part ways for the night. Godric was brushing down his clothes: Eric noticed that he had bought himself a new green kirtle to match his brown woollen cloak. He looked smart and well-to-do, like the respectable son of a respectable tradesman.  
"She is clever and so interesting," he enthused. "She knows so much about the cathedral; her father and brothers have always discussed their work at home and she's better informed than many's an apprentice about glassmaking. She has asked me to visit with her family on Saturday evening, to sup with them and meet her father."  
"Meet her father?" Eric asked sullenly. "Do you propose to ask for her hand, then, if you do not intend to fuck her?"  
He had expected an emphatic denial; instead Godric looked slightly self-conscious.  
"Because," Eric continued, "you are the one who has always told me that we do not take human wives. They die. It is their wont."

Godric stood up to his full height. He barely came up to Eric's chest but when he spoke, he spoke with the kind of authority that made Eric feel crushingly small.  
"If I wish to take a wife, then I will take a wife, Eric," he said.  
"Does she know you are vampire?" he asked, a touch spitefully.  
Godric shrugged. "She will love me, no matter what I am. And when I am her husband, I will make her happier than any human man."  
"But why this one?" Eric wanted to know. He suspected that this Hildi was not human, a _Ljósálfr_ , one of the sweet-spirited light elves he'd learned about as a child, and she had ensnared his maker.  
"She is so good and so tender-hearted," Godric said. "She is the quintessence of all that is beautiful about human existence. She is the one I want to be with."

The words made a chill run through Eric's heart: _she is the one I want to be with_.  
"What about me?" he asked, hating the words even as he spoke them.  
Godric looked surprised. "You, too," he said lightly. "Hildi says they are building a cathedral in a place called Cologne, one that will overshadow any other built in the realm, so splendid it will be. Her father is talking of moving there to see if they have work. If this is so, we will go with them. We will find work there and make our own home and hearth, and you will always be welcome with us, as my kin."

Eric had always had a keener sense of where cities lay than Godric, who simply followed the heavenly bodies in the direction he wanted to go. Eric knew where Cologne was: it was north of Regensburg, not south – not en route to the great mountains of the Alps.  
"We are going _south_ ," he said. "Cologne is to the _north_."  
Godric shrugged. "Well, in our next lifetime," he said. "The Roman cities will still be there when the great cathedral at Cologne is built."  
He touched Eric's arm in passing, a by-your-leave before he scrambled up the stone steps and out of the vault, on his way to meet his sweeting.  
His vampire child watched him leave and a searing burst of rage burned in his chest.

When they rose on Saturday evening, Godric took more care than usual with his appearance, pulling his shirt and tying it tightly to cover the blue markings on his chest. He smoothed his hair and presented himself to Eric, who was leaning against a damp wall, watching his maker's efforts with ill-disguised displeasure.  
"Be happy for me, Eric," Godric said.  
Eric mustered up a smile, but inside he was seething. He had followed Godric for the best part of two centuries; he was bound and beholden to him, but he was beginning to feel that Godric was willing to throw him over and abandon him for a pretty little brown-eyed wench and another Christian god-house.

"How do I look?" Godric asked, anxious in a way that Eric thought unbecoming for a vampire as old and powerful as his maker.  
"You look fine," Eric said. "Do you have a gift for the girl and her parents?"  
"A gift?" Godric asked, really anxious now.  
"A gift, a tribute. Something pretty for the girl – a trinket, something for her wrist or neck, to show your intentions are true. And something for her father and mother so they know that you are a serious suitor."  
Godric tapped his hose, looking for his money. "I will buy something now, then," he said, "but I must rush or I will be late to their supper."  
He pulled his cloak hurriedly around his neck. "Will you meet Hildi on the steps of the cathedral and tell her I'll be late?" he asked Eric. "Tell her to wait for me."  
Eric agreed.

Hildi was waiting by the steps of the Cathedral.  
She didn't see Eric as he approached, she was busy looking after her two little sisters, who darted back and forth in the twilight, trying to tag each other and run away.  
When she saw the vampire, she seemed relieved, then she looked for Godric and looked worried again.  
" _Griaßdigood_ ," she said, _God's greetings to you_. Eric nodded curtly in return. "Wo ist der Gottfried? she asked."  
She craned her neck to look up at him. Eric looked down into her anxious little face and felt the rage boil up in him again.  
"Come with me," he said and grabbed her arm.  
"But my sisters – "  
"They will be fine."

He yanked her into the shadows.  
The square was busy and the little sisters didn't even notice her being pulled aside, so intent were they on their game. In the darkness, he bent his face to her level and dropped fang.  
She shrieked, but he whipped a hand over her mouth to keep her quiet.  
"Do you know what I am?" he hissed.  
She shook her head, then nodded. Eric loosened his grip.  
"Vampir," she whispered. Something clicked in her: "Is Godric a vampire, too?"  
"Of course," Eric grinned. "We both are. He intends to marry you, _meine hübsche kleine Hildegard_ , and then on your wedding night, he will sink his teeth into your neck and drink your blood. You will be his wife and his plaything."  
Hildi started to sob. "I do not believe you," she said.  
"But it is true. You surely don't think he really loves you, do you? We are vampire, we are not your god's creatures, we are alone in the darkness and we care only for ourselves."  
"I hate you," she said and she had the tenacity to thump him.  
Her soft blow landed on his ribs; Eric merely had to swat her hand away.

"Be gone," he said. "And tell no one what I told you or you will be burned as a witch for consorting with a vampire. Out all night, cavorting with the devil's kind – that will get you racked, for sure."  
Hildi gasped, terrified.  
"I could make you forget we had this conversation," Eric continued "but you might see him some evening and simply fall in love with him again. So I am telling you now: stay away from him, from us. Spend your nights in your bed and if you know what's good for you, you tell him that you are no longer interested in him."  
She nodded, slowly. Reluctantly.  
"Tell him ... tell him you've decided to become a nun. To worship your weakling Christ for the rest of your life. And be thankful to me for telling you the truth, even if Godric hasn't."  
He released her arm, tossing her against the base of the wall, and retracted his fangs.  
"Go," he said imperiously and she scrambled away, not looking back as she swooped up the smallest sister in her arms and dragged the other one away, howling.

When Godric arrived, Eric was sitting on the steps.  
"Where is she?" the older vampire asked. Eric shrugged.  
"I haven't seen her," he lied. "She never turned up."  
"Maybe something happened?" Godric said.  
"Maybe," Eric agreed. His maker decided to wait. He waited till the clock struck the hour, then waited till it struck the next hour. Godric was a little frantic, but Eric calmed him.  
"You've maybe mixed up the day," he suggested and Godric's face brightened – maybe it wasn't Saturday – _Sonnabend_ – but Sunday evening, _Sonntagabend_!

But the next day, Hildi didn't come either. Godric wanted to go to her house when everyone was sleeping and climb in her window, but Eric convinced him to wait: maybe there was trouble at home.  
If her feelings for Godric were true, then she would come to the cathedral to find him. It would be better if his maker simply waited for her – surely she would turn up some evening with a perfectly logical explanation, like an ailing mother or sister or some such human hindrance.

As the nights passed, Eric veered between the elation of feeling that he might have got away with separating the lovers and the continuing terror of his interference being found out.  
He wanted to try to convince Godric to forget the girl and move on – to another woman, another town, another cathedral – but Godric was gone when he rose and didn't return to the crypt till after Eric had gone to ground. On the seventh night, Eric rose and went to the alehouse he'd begun to frequent most often and pretended to drink a beer, looking for someone who'd been south to Italy who could tell him a bit about the route. Just before the bells struck midnight, he felt the dull thud in his chest that indicated that Godric was calling him.  
_Eric, Eric_.  
His maker's voice filled his head; Eric tossed a coin on the table and stood up, shoving his full tankard at the man sitting opposite him. He pulled his cloak around his tall frame and left the house, making straight for the cathedral as though pulled by some invisible thread.

When he climbed down out of the dark shadows, he saw Godric immediately.  
His maker was sitting on the steps of the altar and his face was a mask of blood. When Eric approached he could see that Godric's eyes were red-rimmed with his own, and Eric smelled the sweet smell of someone's young blood on his maker's face and clothes. He was hit by a sense of foreboding.

"Kneel," Godric commanded as he stood up, and Eric knelt before the Christ-altar, his head bowed. "You told her what we are, did you not?"  
Numbly, Eric nodded his head.

You told her what we are and you told her to stay away from me," Godric thundered.  
He seemed to care not that a watchman might hear them, or that his voice could carry and echo against the cathedral's high, vaulted ceilings. "You wanted to take her from me for spite. Like a child, you did not want to share, so you ruined her for me. And you thought I would not find out. You are not only a spoiled child, but a stupid one."

Eric began to feel afraid. His maker was not a couple of inches of the ground; his rage was so intense, it lifted him in the air.  
"Because all I had to do was ask her, Eric," Godric continued. "I climbed in through her window and asked her why she did not love me any more. She just cried and said she could not love a creature like me, she was going to devote herself to Christ. A creature like me," he repeated. "What does she know of a creature like me, unless another creature like me told her?"  
"You know we should not take a human wife," Eric mumbled. "You always said so."  
"This one was _different!_ " Godric roared, and the words bounced back off the walls at them.  
He struck Eric across the face, drawing blood. The kneeling vampire gasped: Godric had never hit him in any way before, but behind this slap was all the force of hatred.  
Eric gingerly touched his jaw, unsure whether his cheekbone had been broken.

"So I killed her," Godric continued in a calmer tone. "I took her blood and I strangled her. I was not going to let her spend her life in the company of old women, praying to a heartless god."  
He wiped a bloody hand across his bloody face, smearing the blood to his ear.  
"So you get your wish, my child, we will have to leave Regensburg tonight."  
Eric's heart leapt in relief and he looked up at Godric, full of hope. But his maker hunched down, so they were face to face, then he cupped Eric's face in his bloody hands.

"Were you not my child, I would stake you for this," he said. "But I cannot stake my own, so I abjure you."  
"No, Godric," Eric said, feeling a wave of panic rise. "I am sorry, I didn't understand that she meant that much to you. Please, _min far_ , please don't leave me."  
"I abjure you," he repeated. "For one hundred years, I abjure you. I do not wish to see you or I will kill you before you can say hello. Leave now before the dawn comes. You will need to get a headstart on those who will hunt us when her body is found in the morning."  
Godric stood up and straightened his cloak, then wiped his face on a piece of white cloth. Hildi's kerchief, Eric suddenly realised.  
"Go now," he said, walking off into the darkness.  
"How will I find you?" Eric called after him.  
"If you have not met the true death by then, I will find _you_ ," Godric called.  
And disappeared into the shadows.

**Amiens, France**  
**1472**

Eric sat in the shadows, listening to the monks' Compline.  
The night prayer was conducted by candlelight, their hooded figures created bobbing shadows as the flames flickered in the draughty chapel.  
As in every city, every town, he had spent his exile in, he sought out the churches and cathedrals, sitting on stone steps or irreverently perched on some knight's tomb, looking and waiting in the darkness. His clothes smelled of candlewax and those wretched herbs they burned for their crucified god. 

He was not inclined to pray, but he used his time in these god-houses to hope that Godric was still alive. Maybe that was prayer; he wasn't sure. A hundred years had passed, and more. His maker had not come back for him.  
Eric was beginning to believe that he was lost to Godric and would not be found.  
That Godric did not want to find him.

Someone slid out of the darkness and sat down beside him. Eric didn't dare move, couldn't bring himself to turn his head. They sat, still and silent, side by side, till the monks retreated through the side door and back to their monastic cells.  
"Am I forgiven?" Eric asked, head bowed.  
Godric leaned his head on his child's shoulder.  
"You are," he replied.

x x x 

"Eric?"  
"Yes?"  
"Eric, are you awake?"  
Was he awake? Eric did not know he'd been asleep. He thudded out of the dream with a start, his hand grabbing at something solid, finding the back of the couch in his grip. The television was still on and the Kennick girl was kneeling on the floor in front of him, her face full of concern.  
"Are you okay?" she asked. "It looked like you were having a bad dream."  
"Vampires don't dream," he lied.

\- - -  
_I hope you don't mind the detour into the back-story ..._


	17. XVII

_Beware – in this chapter lies some smut. Beware, be aware and turn away if you are faint-hearted._

XVII

I listened to Pam leave, then heard Eric come up the stairs. I braced myself, in case he would knock on my door, but instead he passed it by and went into his own room. When I brushed my teeth, I could hear the faint sound of his shower, as his bathroom adjoined mine. He was probably washing off the dingy smell of bar and the dingier smell of the woman he'd been with while he was supposedly at work.  
I'd smelled her.  
I wasn't stupid. And I certainly wasn't naive.

Vampires, honestly! I thought, spitting the toothpaste down the sink.  
I went back into the room and checked that all the windows were locked, tucked the curtains in so there wasn't even the tiniest crack to peer into, and then got dressed for bed. I defiantly pulled out a faded black cotton t-shirt and a pair of baggy fleece pyjama bottoms: if Eric Northman was planning on stopping at my door after his shower, he wasn't going to think that I was waiting for him in my sexiest negligee.

Actually, my negligee was negligible; the closest I got to sexy nightwear were a couple of silky pyjamas that my mother had given me last Christmas. But still – I didn't want to give him ideas. I heard the door of his room open and shut, and I held my breath. Then a stair tread creaked and I heard him turn on the TV downstairs. I didn't know whether I was relieved or indignant, but relief won out by a small margin. I shut my eyes and tried to sleep.

But I couldn't.  
I got up to check the windows again, then I went to the bathroom and before I got back into bed, I checked them one more time.  
In bed, wide awake, heart _thump-thump-thumping_ , I realised that a strong vampire could shatter a window and slit my throat faster than Eric Northman could get up the stairs.  
If he even heard me, that is.  
An old vampire could kill me silently and leave me to bleed out on Northman's Egyptian cotton sheets without the Viking even realising that there was an intruder in his home. 

I mulled over this scenario for a long time, then came to a reluctant conclusion; one that made me get out of bed, pull on a cardigan and socks and pad downstairs to Eric's living room.

He was watching some forensic thing on TV – you know, where a bunch of earnest people go around collecting fingernail clippings and random hairs to solve some seemingly-unsolvable murder. I approached the couch quietly, knowing that he was probably perfectly aware that I was there, slipping around to seat myself on the woollen rug on the floor in front of his sofa.  
It was then I noticed that he wasn't awake at all. Nor was he in his 'down' mode – that still, silent state that vampires go into when they go to ground or withdraw to rest.  
Instead, he appeared to be asleep.

Fascinated, I knelt on the rug in front of him. His eyes were closed and I could see by the quick flicker of his pupils that he was dreaming.  
Dreaming?  
Vampires didn't dream – that was common knowledge. I had once asked Ilaria what happened when they rested and she shrugged: there was just peace. Silence. Blackness.

But Eric was definitely dreaming. His lips moved now and again, his head jerked a little to the side. I moved closer to look at him: the room was lit by the television, which I turned down, so I had to move my face closer to his to see what he was doing. As I watched he smiled, then turned his face away from me.  
I stayed very still and he turned back. His expression darkened and his brows drew in some kind of pain or distress, he began to shake his head slightly as if he were trying to stop something. Or someone.

I had seen him without clothes but there was something in his face that rendered him far more naked to me now. I felt bad: Eric was normally so smooth, so shielded, it embarrassed me to see him so unguarded and I knew that he would hate to know that I'd been watching him. With my hand on the carpet to steady myself, I made to stand up and sneak off upstairs when suddenly he gasped out loud and his eyes shot open. One of his legs jerked, kicking the armrest at the end of the couch and he grabbed the back cushion in a white-knuckle death grip. I froze, terrified.

He looked at me, wild-eyed.  
"Eric?"  
"Yes?"  
"Eric, are you awake?"

He just looked at me, then blinked once or twice and looked around.  
"Are you okay?" I asked. "It looked like you were having a bad dream."  
"Vampires don't dream," he said glibly.  
I stared him down. We both knew that was a lie, but given what I had just witnessed, I was prepared to let it go, uncontested, as a concession of sorts.

"What do you want, Magdalena?"  
"Nothing," I answered, adding my own lie to the mix. "I just couldn't sleep, so I thought I'd watch TV with you for a while."  
He looked at me. He was still lying on the couch, turned towards me, and I was still kneeling before him. We were, more or less, at eye level.  
"You are frightened," he stated.  
"Yes," I answered, honestly this time. "Is that a guess or can you feel it because I've had your blood?"

He sighed.  
"I can feel nothing of you," he admitted. "You barely had a trace of my blood, it doesn't count as a bond. Of course, nothing you or I will say will convince either of our gracious rulers that this is not the case, but no: the short answer is that I can't sense you."  
We stared at each other. I tried to form the words to make my request but he beat me to it.

"So you want my blood after all?" he said finally and he could hardly stop himself from smiling, cat's-got-the-cream-like. "That's quite a change in attitude in a few short hours."  
"Eric," I said firmly, "I know all you're thinking about is how I'm going to melt at your feet and bonk you senseless once our blood bond is established, but there's much more to it, you know."  
He raised an eyebrow.  
God above, he was thick. He'd spent centuries in Europe, he should know this shit.

"I'm a bloody _Kennick_ ," I said. "When we form a symbiosis with a vampire, there's a _ceremony_. With witnesses and swearing of fealty and declarations of intent, for crying out loud, and the whole damn thing in Latin, to boot. My family would never let me bond with a vampire unless he'd been thoroughly vetted and my grandparents had visited with his maker and his maker's maker. The Empress hasn't even told my family that you and I are shacked up here in Shreveport, bonded by a drunken blood swap, because the disgrace is so _enormous_ for everyone involved. You would not be considered a good match and my grandfather would probably come after you with his entire collection of silver-tipped stakes and keep your fangs as trophies."

I took a deep breath. It was a long speech and Eric's eyebrows had practically disappeared beneath his hairline.  
"And that is why I married a human man and had a human relationship, because any kind of relationship with a vampire resembles a feudal marriage, with all the trappings of protocol and loyalty-swearing and a fucking entry in the _Book of the Undead_!"  
My voice had reached a pitch best heard by dogs. 

Eric lowered his eyebrows and moved in against the back of the couch. Gently, he pulled me by the arm to lie down on the sofa beside him. It was wide and deep, but even still, it was hard not to touch him. I lay stiffly beside him and shut my eyes. My thoughts were whirring around in my head. He stroked my hair very softly, a very startling experience. His fingers were very gentle and, surprisingly, I felt myself start to relax under his touch.

"I saw a woman burned at the stake once, for having hair this colour," he said. "They said she was a witch. Are you a witch, Maggie?"  
That made me roll my eyes.  
"Yes, I am. I parked my broomstick outside beside your Audi," I snapped.  
He laughed and I had the feeling he wasn't that used to laughing out loud.  
"Why don't you just take my blood and we can worry about everything else when the time comes?" he asked. "You think too much about everything. Having my blood means I can feel when you are in danger. And a blood bond that is formed can be dissolved. We'll have it annulled when you return to Ireland, and your family will get over the fact that their little Magdalena succumbed to a handsome and dashing vampire on a drunken night out. There." He snapped his fingers. "Problem solved."

It was nowhere near as simple as that; he wouldn't have to face my parents and grandparents, who had barely gotten over the shock of my marriage breakdown and unexpected entry into high-level vampire politics. Not to mention the Empress's wrath when she next saw me. But one thing was for sure: Eric Northman knowing when I was afraid or in peril was precisely what had made me sneak down the stairs, hoping he would offer me his blood without my losing too much face.

He didn't let me think about it any more, dropping fang and piercing his own wrist before I could open my mouth to object. He held his wrist to my mouth and I raised my head slightly to lick the droplets of blood.  
"Ugh," I blurted out. "This is just so disgusting."  
I gingerly licked his wrist some more, trying to touch my tongue to the skin around the wounds and not the blood itself. He dipped his head down to my ear.  
"Suck me, Magdalena," he murmured, a note of teasing in his voice.

Maybe it was the blood I'd already ingested, or maybe it was just his nearness, his scent, but I felt a surge of pure, unadulterated lust surge in me.  
I took his wrist and sucked it hard and he moaned, gripping me tighter and rubbing himself against me, his hardness insistent against my thigh. When I released his arm, he nuzzled my neck, scraping his extended fangs against my skin.  
"Woah," I said. My brain was snapping – _snap! snap! snap!_ – I felt like my consciousness was flying, like I was drunk.  
"Am I attractive to you now?" he teased.  
" _Woah_ ," I said again.  
I started to laugh and he laughed with me. He bent to kiss me and I kissed him back, not caring, not caring, not caring.  
It was like someone had flicked the 'Off' switch on the thought centre of my brain and my entire being was lighter, freer.

Flinging my arms behind my head, I stretched like a cat, feeling my bones crack and elongate.  
Was the vampire blood making me taller? It was hardly possible, but Northman had old, old blood and it was making me feel like the most desirable being in the world.   
And when I turned to the vampire, I could see that he agreed.  
He pulled his t-shirt off over his head and busied himself getting me out of my cardigan and shirt. I let him: in fact, I lay back, grinning at him as he earnestly tried to divest me of clothes, kissing and scraping me with his fangs, leaving light scatchmarks across my stomach and breasts. He started to pull down my pyjamas – _maybe I should've worn the silky ones? No, damn it, I was rocking the fleece, I was gorgeous in them_ , my blood-drunk mind insisted – but I grabbed his chin and pulled him back up to my face. 

He hesitated for a minute, then rolled over on his back and moved me on top of him, pulling my legs upward so I straddled him.  
"Retract your fangs," I whispered and he did.  
We kissed passionately, fingers locked in each other's hair. When he moved against me, I felt his tip rub against me in a place that hadn't been touched in a long time. The two layers of cloth between us just made it more tantalising. I pushed him back on to the couch and sat up. Instantly, his fangs popped back out again and he bared them at me.  
"Wait," I said and slid my face down to his chest.  
I ran my fingers over his collar bone, stroked the muscles of his chest, his arms, and kissed his nipples. He moved against me, pulling at my pyjamas, trying to stroke a breast, but I wriggled out of his grip, intent on exploring his body as he had explored mine. I breathed deeply in the dip of his ribcage, smelling him.  
"Do I still smell of spiced apples?" he asked, grinning.  
I paused and breathed him in again. "No," I said, "It's kind of weird, actually. You smell of ..."  
I tried to place it, it rang a bell from childhood, my childhood in Catholic Ireland.  
"You smell of incense," I said, laughing.

He gave a yelp and shoved me off him with such force that he knocked me on to the rug.  
"Ow," I said, rubbing my tailbone. He leapt off the couch and towered over me, shouting at me in a language I didn't recognise.  
"What? What did I do?" I shrieked.  
" _Are you a witch?_ " he shouted.  
I was confused.  
"A witch?"  
"Why did you say I smell of incense?" he shouted.  
Duh. "Because you smell of incense," I replied. "Is that wrong? Is that bad?"  
"How did you know?"  
I stared at him.

His fists were balled and he looked as though he were going to kill me with a single strike. Slowly, cautiously, I slid back on to the couch, not taking my eyes off him.  
Eric glowered at me. Biting my lip, I patted the seat beside me to indicate that he should sit ... and something changed in him. He sank down beside me and put his elbows on his knees, his face in his hands.  
"You can smell my dreams," he said. I was about to point out that he'd told me vampires didn't dream but I shut my mouth. "How is that possible?"  
"I don't know," I whispered.  
"Carrier blood is known to let vampires dream," he continued. I tensed: I'd been told it but thought it was just a legend. "I've known vampire monarchs who kept your kind for that purpose. But I didn't know it was like this."  
He turned to look at me.  
"I didn't know either," I said. And added, "I'm sorry," because it felt like I needed to say it. He looked so ... defeated.  
I lay back on the couch and this time it was me who pulled him down beside me.  
"I'm sorry," I murmured. "I'm sorry, Eric. I'm sorry."  
I kissed his jaw, stroking his hair back, kissed his cheeks, his lips. He paused, then returned my kisses, gently at first, then with a kind of fierceness that almost frightened me.

I pushed him back down and straddled him again.  
"I'll finish what I started," I said and, to my relief, he smiled broadly at me in return.  
I made my way down his chest, nuzzled the line of hair that ran from his navel to the band of his pants. He closed his eyes and arched his back slightly, so I could pull his pants down.  
"Suck me, Magdalena," he said for the second time that night, but there was no note of teasing in it this time.  
I pulled his clothes down further and nuzzled him with my lips. He moaned in response, his fingers threading gently through my hair.

Then the phone rang.  
"Ignore it," he said. It continued to ring, then the answering machine clicked on.  
"This is Stephen Hofmann, calling for Magdalena Kennick," a tinny voice said.  
I shot up, arrow straight, my finger over Eric's mouth to shut him up.  
"Maggie, when you get this message, please call me. Ilaria hasn't been seen since you left and the Queen fears something might have happened to her. You have my number; call me please."

"Fuck," Eric hissed.  
_Yeah, not tonight,_ I thought and scrambled off him to find my phone.


	18. XVIII

I took the stairs, two at a time, and tossed the clothes on my bed in a heap on the floor, frantically looking for my mobile. When I found it, I almost punched Stephen's number into the screen and howled with dismay when it just went to his mailbox.  
Who could I phone?  
I scrolled down through my contacts and called Pam. She seemed like the kind of woman you could call in a crisis. But she didn't pick up either, so I left another message. 

I had just clicked back to the phone contacts list when it started to ring, and my fingers shook as I pressed the 'accept call' button. It was Stephen, his familiar voice warm and kindly and full of longing: how was I? How were things? How was the weather in northern Louisiana?  
"Fine, fine," I answered distractedly.  
Did he not remember that the last time we'd been in close proximity, he'd been trying to sidle away from me and the scary vampire monarchs?  
Obviously not.

"Tell me about Ilaria," I begged, cutting across his weather report for the southern half of the state – yes, he was giving me meteorological updates.  
"Oh, yes." I could practically hear him shrugging. "Well, we went out on Saturday night – "  
Wait: Saturday. When was that? Oh, yes, we were heading towards Monday's dawn, so Saturday was barely a couple of days ago; way back when I gainfully employed in New Orleans.  
"Just Ilaria, Hans-Peter and I. We went to a nice vampire-human fusion bar in the French Quarter and at some point, Hans-Peter and I decided to go back to the hotel. Ilaria was pretty deep in conversation with a woman at the bar, so she told us to go ahead and she'd follow. And we haven't seen her since."

In the few minutes it had taken my shaking hands to locate the telephone, I had pictured all kinds of gruesome scenarios. Ilaria staked. Ilaria held hostage by blue-coated Rob and Katie clones. Ilaria defanged by Anti-Charterists. And now Stephen was telling me that she'd just gone to a bar and hooked up with someone – and hadn't come to work the next day?

My silence must've spoken volumes because he laughed.  
"I know, right? I keep telling the Empress that she's probably shacked up somewhere with the blond human woman from the bar. I mean, we had a night off tonight so she wasn't needed here anyway … but the Empress has become so paranoid, she's convinced that Ilaria has been kidnapped or something."  
"Isn't it a bit early to worry that she's gone missing?" I asked.  
Given the dressing-down that Ilaria had probably got from her boss (the Empress) for letting her godchild (me) cavort with a known vampire rabble-rouser and general ne'er-do-well (Northman), I wasn't surprised that she'd chosen to go off radar for a couple of days.  
"Well, _I_ think so," said Stephen, "but the Empress insisted that I phone you and ask if you've seen her."  
"No, not Ilaria," I said and told him about the face at the window.

He sounded suitably worried.  
"Do you want me to come up there?" he asked. "I can tell the Empress that we have grounds to fear for your safety."  
"It's okay," I said and I suddenly felt a bit shy. "Eric is taking care of it."

Now it was Stephen's turn to be silent and I could feel the waves of disapproval speeding down the phoneline and crashing against the side of my head.  
"Do not trust him, Maggie," he said. "He's not what he seems. If you knew what I knew about him…"  
His voice tailed off.  
"What do you know about him?" I whispered down the phone.  
More silence.  
"Nothing to do with the issue at hand," Stephen said evasively. "Just keep away from him, do you hear?"  
It was going to be slightly difficult, that bit. But I didn't want to admit that to Stephen.  
I mumbled a promise and crossed my fingers so I felt better about the lie.  
"I'll let you know when Ilaria comes walking back in the door," he said, and added, "And I'll come up to see you as soon as I can."  
"Great," I said weakly.  
That was all I needed: Stephen and Eric in the same room; God help me.

When I came out of the bathroom, Eric was leaning in my doorway. Given his height, he seemed to spend a lot of time leaning against stuff, listening and thinking. I don't know how much he'd heard but I guessed it was probably most of it. Nonetheless, I filled him in: missing vampire, but no cause for concern. Yet.

He nodded.  
"Coming to bed?" he asked.  
Dawn was approaching and I felt exhausted. It had been a long and eventful night and the effects of Eric's blood seemed to vanish in an instant: I was suddenly very human and very weary. I grabbed my mobile and pulled the comforter off my bed, knowing his room would be cold, and followed him down the hall.

He opened his door and let me go in before him.  
He might've been planning to scoop me up in his arms and throw me down on the mattress to make passionate love, but I just made a beeline for the bed and crawled under a small mound of blankets like a mole.  
He regarded me for an instant and then stripped, matter-of-factly, not bothering with even a token show of modesty. I couldn't even keep my eyes open to enjoy the display; I was asleep before he got into the bed beside me.

I woke to the sound of my mobile and the doorbell ringing simultaneously.  
I answered my phone, suppressing a shriek when my movements activated a night-light beside the bed. It was TJ.  
"Eh… Miss Magdalena?" he said. "This is TJ Knight. My father and I are at the door. Mr Northman said we should come by and look into some report about a prowler?"  
He sounded polite, formal.  
"Yes, sure. Thank you. Give me five minutes."

I looked over at Eric. He wasn't dreaming now, just in that dead-like state: flat on his back, his eyes closed, covered to the chin with the black bed cover.  
I peeked under the blankets because - well, who wouldn't?  
He was wearing a t-shirt and some kind of long cotton pants, thank goodness. I wasn't sure I could handle Northmanic nudity in my frail state. I replaced the blanket as I'd found it, in case he discovered that I'd been peeping at him. I hurried to my room to put on some clothes myself, then went downstairs to open the door.

TJ was standing in front of a man that was a copy of himself in a kind of _before/after_ way.  
His dad had the same tawny eyes and muscular build, but his face was lined and hard and his thick hair was greying over his ears. Before TJ could introduce us, he flicked a cigarette on the ground and stubbed it out with his toe, then thought better of leaving the butt on Eric Northman's doorstep. He picked it up and pocketed it, a look of deep displeasure written across his face.  
If TJ wasn't fond of vampires, then his old man downright hated them.

"Heard you had an issue with a prowler, ma'am," said Daddy Knight, aka Troy, when we'd been properly introduced. "He said – " curt nod towards the house, no need to ask who he was – "this guy been lookin' in your window. Your upstairs window. Can you show me which one that might be?"

I led them around the side of the house, our feet squelching in the wet grass.  
December in Louisiana had been damp and cold and I shivered in the morning air. The two men, more suitably dressed for the outdoors than I, examined the ground, taking photographs of indents in the grass and mud that might have been footprints. Or not.

"I don't see any signs of a ladder and I doubt he coulda climbed up the side of that house," Troy said, thoughtfully.  
"Oh, he could probably fly," I said without thinking. "Some of them can, apparently.  
" _Jesus-fucking-Christ!_ " spat out TJ's dad, then added, "Sorry, ma'am, sorry. Excuse my French."  
"That's pretty much what I said when I heard," I said apologetically.

That endeared me a little to TJ's father.  
"Bad enough them goin' around at them speeds," he grumbled. "But flyin' as well?"  
He shook his head in disgust.  
"Doesn't bear thinking about," I agreed. "Dreadful."  
We made some _tsk-tsk_ noises and Mr Knight told his son they'd come back at night to get the scent.  
"We might come back with … eh… large tracker dogs," TJ's father said. "So don't get a fright if you look out and see them – "  
"She knows, Dad," TJ interjected and his father looked relieved.  
"Fine, fine. Tell him to keep his fangs in, then, if he sees a few wolves in his yard. It's just me an' a couple of the boys."  
"I will," I promised.

They took their leave.  
"You okay for groceries, ma'am?" TJ asked me solicitously as he waited for his father to unlock the doors of the truck.  
"I'm running a bit low," I said, with appropriate earnestness. "I might have to engage your services again this week."  
"Just give me a call," he said and made a cap-tipping motion with his index finger.  
"Cookie run!" I mouthed and was rewarded with one of his beautiful smiles.  
I waved goodbye to them and went back upstairs, gleefully excited at the thought of seeing some werewolves under my window.

\- - - 

The next time I woke it was because of a sharp pricking sensation on my shoulder.  
I opened my eyes to find Eric gently jabbing the skin with his extended fangs: not enough to draw blood, but enough to be irritating. His eyes were full of mischief.

"Stop that," I said and shoved his large head away. "I used to have a cat that did that. Scratched my face till I woke up."  
He slid over to wrap his arms around me, and I let him.  
"Are you comparing me to a cat?" he asked, nuzzling me in a very feline way.  
I gently scratched his jaw, his chin: our cat used to like that and Eric, rubbing his face against my fingers, didn't seem averse to it, either.  
"Hmm. Bossy, imperious and prone to sulking?" I rejoined. "Yes, I think there's some resemblance."  
He laughed into my hair. "You're funny, Magdalena Kennick."  
"Glad you think so, Eric Northman."

He nuzzled me again and I turned to flatten myself against him, pressing up against his chest and groin.  
His grin extended, baring his fangs. His were long and sharp, a sign that he was very old. I felt a sudden desire to touch them, but held back. It's something a lot of vampires consider quite intimate and, thus, often taboo.

"I think we should carry on where we left off last night," he decided, interrupting my thoughts.  
"You see: bossy."  
"I can be very bossy," he agreed and ran a hand under my t-shirt. "Take it off."  
I writhed against him.  
"Slow down," I teased. "What's the rush?"  
"Oh, Pam is here," he said, trying to wrangle my top off. "She gets pissed if she has to wait."  
"What? _Here_? In the _house_?" I cried, looking around the room as though she might pop out of a closet (really: vampires. You can't put it past them.)  
"Yes," he said vaguely, as we did a slight tug-o-war with my outer garments.  
"I'm actually outside the door," she announced. "And I'm pissed already. You told me to come by when I rose, so here I am. I would like to know what has happened to Ilaria, but if this is going to take a long time, I'll just go downstairs and watch some HBO."  
"Go downstairs, Pam," Eric ordered, "Now!" and dipped into my neck, scraping, scraping with his fangs.  
"Imperious!" I hissed and called, "No, don't, Pam. Come in."

And before Eric could protest, she flung the door open and marched in.  
She looked me up and down: hair mussed, my old t-shirt bunched up around my stomach and one breast firmly in the clasp of a cold vampire hand.  
"Mmmm, _sexy_ ," she drawled in a tone that indicated that it was anything but.

I stared at her and I couldn't help but smile.  
She was wearing a teal skirt and blazer that were a tad too tight to be suited to a business environment, and a cerise ruffled blouse with a strand of pearls. Her hair was tied up and she had cerise lipstick and matching nails. I couldn't see her shoes, but by her towering height I knew they were probably impressively high.  
"What are you looking at?" she sneered.  
I laughed. "You look like an Evil Soccer Mom," I said.  
Her lips twitched and she said to Eric, "She is amusing, your carrier."  
He gave my breast a small squeeze of approval.  
I yelped and smacked his hand away.  
"Forget about it," I snapped and he leaned back against his pillow, rolling his eyes in exasperation.  
"There you go," Pam said with one of her brittle smiles. "Prone to sulking. You were right, Magdalena, he's definitely a cat."

We went downstairs and I filled Pamela in on the non-event that was Ilaria's disappearance.  
I expected her to make the same kind of _"Oh,-well,-I'm-sure-she'll-turn-up"_ noises that the rest of us had made, but her brow furrowed and she looked unhappy.

"This is not like Ilaria," she said. "Even if – especially if – she was in Moya's bad books, she wouldn't just disappear. I think something has happened to her, too. When are they going to officially declare her missing?"  
"If she doesn't turn up for work tonight, the Empress is going to tell Queen Catherine that one of her vampires has disappeared and then I guess they'll start a search. Stephen said he'd phone me when she turns up, so I'm basically just waiting for his call."

I was sitting on the sofa, craning my head to look up at her.  
Pamela walked to and fro in front of the fireplace, anxiously pacing three or four steps, then turning and going back the way she came. I looked over at Eric: he was sitting at the far end of the couch, but one bare foot was resting against my thigh.  
He shrugged.

"I've called her twice or thrice," Pam said, "And she hasn't answered. I should've known something was up. Are we going to go down to New Orleans to look for her? We could - "  
"No one is going anywhere," Eric interrupted, his voice firm. "For a start: we don't know if she's really missing yet. And, secondly, we're not welcome in New Orleans and there's not much we can do there anyway. So we will do nothing."  
"We could talk to the people who were at the bar," I suggested. "Maybe retrace her steps. Find the blond woman Stephen said she was speaking to."  
"If _only_ we had a telepath," Pam announced melodramatically. "Someone who could read human thoughts and let us know what they were really thinking. _Imagine_ how that would help our investigation!"  
She glared at her maker but Eric just frowned at her and shook his head in warning.  
"Yes, well, when we find a magic telepath, we'll put him in our unicorn carriage and take him with us down to New Orleans sprinkling fairy-dust as we go," I snapped crossly. "But in the meantime, what can we _really_ do?"

Eric stood up.  
Pam, bless her, was almost his height but he was used to being the authority in the room. In every room.  
"We will do nothing," he repeated. "If she's declared missing, they will look for her far more efficiently and effectively than we can do. We'll go to Fangtasia; I have to hold court there this evening and Maggie must be within sight at all times."  
He walked out of the room and I could hear him taking our jackets off the hooks in the hall. I looked at Pam and whispered, "If she doesn't turn up, I'm going to New Orleans."  
Pam nodded in agreement. "You bet you are," she said.


	19. XVIV

Empty, Fangtasia smelled of stale beer and spilled cocktails.  
When we arrived, the cleaning crew was just finishing up and Eric disappeared into the back office to make some calls. I helped Pam replace the chairs around the tables and then made myself useful by restocking the napkins and straws behind the bars, putting glasses into place and gathering empty bottles for the recycling bin. I worked fast: I'd spent my college years working behind a busy Dublin pub at weekends, so I knew the drill.

Pamela was impressed and asked me if I wanted to take a shift behind the bar.  
"I don't know if I'm allowed to work over here," I said doubtfully. "I don't think I have the right visa for bar work."  
All of my paperwork had been handled by the Empress's vampire lawyers, but I'm pretty sure that no provision had been made for odd-jobbing in a friend's nightclub.  
She waved that away as thought it were entirely inconsequential. She gave me a quick introduction to their cash register system and showed me where they kept the ingredients for cocktails and the price lists.

"You'll be fine," she said shortly. "I'll be on the door and Eric will be up there."  
"What did he mean by saying he had to hold court?" I asked curiously.  
Pamela narrowed her eyes.   
"Literally that. As sheriff, he has to arbitrate in vampire disputes, register newly-turned vamps, register vampires moved to his area, blah, blah, blah. A lot of paperwork. So they all come crawling in here once a month and Eric endures their whining and tries to come up with some Solomonian decision for all of their little tiffs and quarrels. Scintillating stuff. Still, he can eyeball you for a couple of hours while he's at it, and that might make it more bearable."  
She looked me over.   
"Except, of course, I don't think anyone would want to eyeball you looking like that."  
She tugged my top, another sensible tailored blouse that I'd worn at vampire meetings.  
"Come with me," she said, "And we'll see if we can fix you up."

Twenty minutes later, I was back behind the bar, looking like a Vampire Barbie Protegée.   
Pam had tried to persuade me to wear one of her corsets, but I begged off the idea. She found me a grass-green dress that probably came down to her mid-thigh but demurely ended at my knee. It had an inbuilt corset, so Pamela did get to lace me up after all, but the neckline was higher, showing only the swell of my white bosom and not, to Pam's disappointment, a vast expanse of chest flesh. 

The blond vampire looked at me for a couple of seconds then left the bathroom, returning with a chain and pendant in her hand. She tied it around my neck, shortening the chain so the pendant rested on my breasts. I picked it up and looked at it. It was a claw – God know from what.  
"It's Eric's," Pamela said by way of explanation. "It'll stop the other vampires from hitting on you."  
"Marking his territory?" I turned it over and then let it fall back into my cleavage. "Sure beats peeing on me like a dog, I suppose."  
"That might be a problem, given the health code and all," Pam remarked in her dry way. "But I'll be sure to suggest it to him for the next time."

She used a huge brush to swirl my hair up and pinned it on the top of my head and then thrust her large makeup bag at me and told me to "do something about my face." Her bag was full of jet black eyeliners, pink lipstick and eyeshadows in a rainbow of shocking colours. I dabbed my face gingerly with her cosmetics and tried to imitate a bit of her style but the end result wasn't particularly successful. When I came out of the bathroom, she grabbed my elbow and steered me back inside, and rapidly worked on my face: dramatic eyeliner, sparkly eyeshadow and a lot of dark pink lipstick.  
"See?" she said in satisfaction. "Much better. Now what's wrong?"

Looking at our reflections in the mirror, I was reminded of Ilaria, my first visit to Fangtasia and her attempts to make me look more glamorous. I felt a bit wobbly thinking about my missing godmother.  
"Nothing," I said quietly.

Eric did a double-take when he walked past the bar.  
"Hey, sweetie-pie!" I called and wriggled my fingers at him.   
This only made him look more perplexed and that made me laugh. The other two barmaids, Ginger and Evie, smirked and busied themselves with their tasks.

"Are you and the boss, like, together?" Evie asked.   
She was younger than me: turned in her early twenties and only a vampire for three years, she was still just a baby. She was friendly and polite, slightly wary and territorial. She watched me serve the first few customers and I could see her assessing how well I was doing the job and whether it would affect how well she did hers.  
"Yes," I said shortly. No need to get into details.  
"Nice," she smiled and turned away.  
She was the type of girl who was complete: she had her own interests, her own friends, her own life. She was superficially sweet to me but I was essentially uninteresting to her, extraneous to her needs. In her world, I existed only as a bit-player and she felt no need to share anything beyond the briefest of niceties with me.

Ginger, on the other hand, felt the need to share everything.   
I quickly learned that I'd been strategically been placed between Ginger and Evie as a bulwark. While Evie calmly talked me through some of the bar routines, Ginger smacked bottles of beer down on the bar, complaining in a theatrical whisper that was as loud as most people's speaking voices about what a bitch Evie was. Evie blithely ignored her and I tried to appear to be listening, but not listening too carefully in case Evie thought I had taken sides. I soon figured out that my job was to be nice to both women and prevent them from killing each other.   
Gee, thanks, Pam.

The bar wasn't full; the human visitors were in the minority and a lot of the vampires were hanging around, waiting to talk to Eric. They placed themselves in front of me to be served, smelling my Coca-Cola-tainted blood (I'd had one or two), but their avaricious smiles faded when they noticed the pendant around my neck. However, the owner of the pendant barely seemed to notice what his human property was getting up to: Eric sat on the stage with his head inclined, listening to litany after litany of complaint or supplication. He spoke little and what he did say was often met with displeasure. But other than frown or pout, none of the visiting vampires seemed to dare argue with him.

Ginger caught me watching him as I served up a True Blood and a beer for the vampire customer's human companion.  
"You bin together long?" she asked conversationally.   
There was a temporary lull and all three of us were without customers. Evie was engaged in an animated conversation with a vampire she apparently knew, Ginger and I were leaning against one of the fridges, drinking another Coke.

"Who? Eric and I? Not long," I said vaguely.  
"Yeah," she said, flicking a dishcloth, "we used to be together once. Like, ages ago."  
She peeked up at me from under her fringe, trying to gauge my reaction.   
I smiled at her: Ginger was sweet but not terribly bright. I didn't want to even imagine the circumstances that brought her and Eric together: I simply couldn't imagine a more unlikely couple - but I didn't tell her that.

"'Course," she continued, "I broke it off. Ain't no good when you work together. Know what I mean?"  
"I do," I said solemnly. "It's just too complicated."  
"Yeah," she said, her face brightening. "Me and Eric were way complicated."  
I nodded sympathetically. "I get you," I said.  
"You're nice," Ginger said suddenly. "Some of the women he bin with are real bitches, know what I mean?"  
I admitted that I could imagine it somehow.  
"'Cept, of course, Sookie. She was okay, too, but she was a whole heap of trouble."  
Aha. The infamous Sucky.  
"What was she like?" I asked casually.

Ginger sucked some air in through her teeth.   
"All the vamps were into her. She done all kinds of shit and they were all still crazy about her. I usedta think it was 'cause she was able to read minds and all, maybe she gave off some kind of vibe, like vampire catnip."  
"She was able to read minds?" I asked sharply.  
The little blond barmaid looked at me funnily.   
"You don't believe me, do you? But she really was a mindreader. A telly-path, or whatever they call it. I swear. You can ask Pam if you like."  
"I believe you," I said and mentally filed away this choice piece of information under 'Might Be Needed Later'. "Does she live in Shreveport?"  
"Oh, no," Ginger said, moving forward to the bar to serve a customer. "She lives out Renard Parish way, south of here. I forget the name of the place she lives in, I think it's one o' them Cajun names."  
"Does she ever come in here?"  
Ginger laughed. "No, no, I ain't see sight nor sign of her for years."  
Hmmm, I thought.   
Interesting.

I worked behind the bar till a huge guy called Devon took over.   
It was still quiet: Eric was working his way through the vampire visitors and the humans were slowly drifting home, even though it wasn't even midnight. I sat on a barstool and chatted with Ginger and Devon till Pam came in, announcing that it was a slow night and they were going to shut the bar early. The good citizens of Shreveport, vampire and human, apparently had better things to do on a freezing cold Monday night in December.

Devon and Evie looked none too pleased and they both left quickly, leaving Ginger and me to close up the bar. Pam checked the registers and took out the cash, while Ginger ordered us a pizza. We weren't going anywhere till Eric was done and he was deep in earnest conversation with a trio of vampires, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the bar was now empty except for us. 

The oldest-looking of the three vampires was one I'd seen in New Orleans at the Queen's ball: he was a bit portly and his cheeks were - unusually for a vampire - a dull shade of pink. He had been prosperous, well-fed, in his human life and he continued to look prosperous and well-fed as a vamp. The other two vampires on stage looked like siblings: they both wore dreadlocks, the woman's were longer than the man's, but both had similar thin, long faces. Their skin was the colour of milky coffee, their eyes slightly slanted. They were a very striking couple and it bothered me for a minute why they seemed so familiar. Then I remembered: they reminded me of some of the famous Egyptian busts; the woman, with her long neck and raised chin, looked a bit like a vampire Nefertiti. 

As if they'd all heard me thinking about them, all four vampire faces turned to look at me. Eric raised a hand to signal that I should come on stage.

I took a seat beside him.   
I'd swerved to sit on a smaller chair on his left, but he'd indicated that I should sit on his right.   
Now sitting on a heavy wooden seat beside his, facing the other vamps, it occurred to me that there was something odd about our seating arrangement. Eric and I sitting side by side in those clunky wooden chairs, with the three vampire sitting opposite. I began to feel uneasy and uneasier still when the three of them bowed their heads and showed me the unbeating pulse on their left wrists as a gesture of respect. It was a very formal and outdated gesture that had even fallen out of fashion in Dublin, where vampire protocol had fossilised sometime back in the previous century.

Eric took my hand and said, "This is Magdalena Maria Kennick, daughter of John Kennick, private secretary to Emperor Charles of Europe for many years, daughter of Anna Turner Kennick, who in turn was great-granddaughter of Olav Kandinkski, known as the Protector of the Russian vampires. Magdalena is the great-granddaughter of Big Seán Kennick, who chaired the Second Council in 1922. Her great-great-grandfather was the renowned vampire killer Thomas Seán Kennick, who was married to and mated with Mary Elizabeth van Helsaig Kennick, the one who staked the Whore of Transylvania."

He squeezed my hand and I instinctively knew he didn't want me to show any surprise at the depth of his research. Where had he found all of this out, I wondered?   
But I nodded solemnly at the vampires, poker-faced.  
"And she is yours?" the dark vampire asked.  
His voice was low and deep, and he stared at me unblinkingly.  
"A blood bond has occurred," the portly one chimed in quickly. "Hasn't it?"  
"It has," Eric said and raised my hand to his lips.   
He smiled at me, baring fang, and I smiled back, slightly unsure of what was going on, but deeply uneasy.   
"She is mine. And she is a true Kennick, a true carrier, the purist of all the Five Families."  
The two dreadlocked vampires looked at each other and I could tell they were holding some kind of private conversation in their heads.

"We heed," the woman said finally.   
Her voice was low and melodic, her accented English was not American.  
She stood and the other two did, too, so Eric and I stood as well. He continued to hold my hand in his, very firmly.  
"We take our leave, Sheriff Northman, and we note with interest what you have told us. It has been edifying," she finished.   
She turned to me.   
"We have been told that you may have been visited by one of the Queen's retinue. We will do our best to find out who it was and we shall ensure that you are not harmed by any of the Queen's court while you are here."

She inclined her head in an almost regal way.  
"Thank you," I said and I meant it.   
I didn't know who she was - because vampires rarely felt the need to introduce themselves to humans, even ones with impressive bloodlines, like me - but I knew she was someone with influence. And probably a good deal of power.

Eric and I saw them to the back door of the bar, out into the tiny parking lot where employees could park their cars. Pamela stood aside respectfully when they passed. They glided through the outer door and out into the night. Before they got into their car, the woman turned to us once more to say her parting words.  
"We will consider your proposal, Mr Northman," she said and then she directed a smile at me. "And we approve of your choice of consort."

I stood in the doorway, flanked by Eric and Pam, a smile frozen on my face. His consort?  
We waited silently till their car pulled out of the car park and out of sight, then I turned to Eric, so many questions tripping off my tongue that I didn't know where to start.  
"Hey, there you are!" Ginger said. She stuck her head around the doorway. "You gotta hurry up, Maggie. Pizza's arrived and it's getting cold."  
"You should eat," Eric said, pushing me gently into the bar, "You're going to need your strength, Magdalena."


	20. XX

"Is it a sin to be tempted?" Sookie Stackhouse blurted out. 

She was standing in front of Fr Cafferty, his chicken and dumplings in one hand and a cold beer in another.  
Once a week the Catholic priest came into Arlene's and ordered the exact same thing off the menu. He sat in the same corner booth with three or four gardening magazines or a book from the library about orchids or deciduous trees and slowly cleared his plate, engrossed in the photos of blooms and parasites.

He looked up at her, blinking through the thick lenses of his glasses.  
Instead of wondering why she was so weird or why she was asking such a strange question, Fr Cafferty was actually thinking about his answer. That's why Sookie liked him. His thoughts were never mean or mean-spirited: when he entered the bar he had something good in his head about everyone: _Oh, look, there's Jane, so glad she's not drinking too much today_ when he saw Jane Bodehouse holding up the bar, a glazed look on her face. Or _It's so nice to hear young people celebrating life!_ when Jason and his friends were whooping and yelling about some filthy joke or football result. When Sookie served his table, he thought nice things about her: _What a sweet smile. What a mannerly young lady. Her grandmomma would be so proud._

Sookie was always extra nice to him and his opinion of her only escalated, something she would've known from the broad smile on his face, even if she weren't able to read his thoughts.

"Is it a sin to be tempted?" he repeated, removing his thick glasses so he could rub his eyes. "I'm not sure it's a sin to be tempted, Sookie, but it sure is a sin to _give in_ to that temptation. Does that make sense?"  
"It does," Sookie said, and straightened up the napkin dispenser. "Enjoy your meal, Father."

What she didn't tell Fr Cafferty was that the previous day she'd had a fight with her husband about – of all things – socks. She'd told him time and time again to make sure little Adele wore those socks with the rubber soles. Sookie'd driven into Shreveport especially to buy them because she knew the little one ran everywhere and slipped often on the wooden floors of the old Stackhouse home. Adele, they joked, had learned to run before she could walk. Small for her two years, she darted from room to room like a blond will-o'-the-wisp, overcoming any unsteadiness on her chubby legs by simply propelling forward, forward, till she landed in someone's arms or on her little butt. But Luke kept forgetting to put on the socks – claiming he could never find a pair, they were always in the wash, Adele was always taking them off and hiding them – and yet he was surprised when the little girl had slipped mid-flight in her stocking feet and whacked her head off the hardwood floor.

A fight had a ensued; a rare fight, mind you, but all the more heated for its rarity.  
Sookie waited till Adele had returned to her previous good spirits, then she'd picked up her keys and driven off at a higher speed than necessary, the wheels of her little yellow car spitting up gravel stones in protest. She drove all the way into Shreveport, bought a dozen pairs of those stupid socks, even though she knew Adele would grow out of them faster than all twelve pairs could be worn. 

But she felt like flinging them into Luke's face and for that dramatic gesture, she needed a lot of them. She also treated herself to a new nail polish (she might've been able to afford a manicure if she hadn't spent all of her money on toddler socks) and just before she got into her car to go home, she bought a big chocolate milkshake that she knew she wouldn't be able to finish – but what the heck.  
Today was a day for grand gestures.

And so she drove home.  
Kind of.  
As though she had no power over her finger, it hit the indicate switch at the turn off to Fangtasia. She drove the familiar route as if she were remotely controlled: she knew what she was doing but she didn't want to think about it. She sat in potholed parking lot on a chilly Monday morning, staring at the door of the bar, sucking her chocolate milkshake through the plastic straw.  
"What are you doing here, Sookie?" she'd asked but she had no answer for herself.  
The place was deserted; Ginger wouldn't come by to open up till mid-afternoon. And it wasn't like Eric was going to walk out that door, stride over to the car, yank open the door and take her in his arms in the weak light of a grey December day.

She stirred her milkshake.  
And what would she do if, by some miracle, Eric Northman came bounding out of Fangtasia, with that determined look on his face, a hand outstretched to touch her?  
Sookie thought about it and came to the conclusion she always came to: she wouldn't take his hand.  
She'd thought about it every which way and every time she came to the same realization. She loved Luke. She loved their daughter. She loved the other one that was probably on the way. She loved her life, the light, the sunshine, the days spent chasing a little girl around the garden, shopping for groceries with her baby on her hip. She'd spent years complaining about how her life seemed to rocket from one crisis, one danger, to the next and now she was in a cocoon of warmth and security, surrounded by people who loved her.  
Exactly what she'd always wanted. Wasn't it?

She'd changed her mobile phone number and had only given it to her closest of friends; not because she was afraid Eric might ring her, but because she was afraid she might, in a moment of darkest despair, ring him. Rather than make a stupid mistake that might ruin everything she'd built for herself, ruin her marriage, mar her daughter's young life, she just removed a temptation so she wouldn't have to deal with the possibility of being tempted by it.

And yet, every now and again, she allowed herself to drive to Fangtasia – always by daylight, always in the morning – and sit in the car park and just miss him and miss the life she used to have, crises, danger and all. They'd had no contact for years and Eric had never made any attempt to come by the house or seek her out.  
She was at once both glad and somehow a little bereft.

Sookie drank a little more milkshake, then shoved it into a cup holder and started the car. She drove home, this time with no more stops or detours. Luke met her on the porch with Adele in his arms, her hair fuzzy from her midday nap. Her husband and daughter watched her climb out of the car and she felt a smile break across her face when she saw their identical grins of delight.  
"Momma! Momma!" Adele shouted.  
"I'm home, baby!" Sookie called and a wave of relief washed over her. She'd made the right choice, she was sure. She was always sure. "And wait till you see what your crazy Momma bought!"

Was it a sin to be tempted? No, it wasn't.  
Was it a sin to give into temptation? Yes, it was.  
But what if you went right up to the very edge of that temptation and then ran away before anything happened? 

Sookie didn't know if she could ask Fr Cafferty that. She didn't want to hear what he would think of her if she pushed his theological boundaries with her crazy-ass questions.

\- - - 

Sookie normally didn't do the afternoon shift any more because she liked to be home to put Adele to bed. Finishing at six meant that she didn't get home in time to give her a bath and tuck her in. But Arlene had been so desperate, she'd made an exception. One of the waitresses had broken her arm falling off a horse, the other one was gone to her grandmother's funeral in Baton Rouge, she would pay Sookie double-time if necessary.  
"It's not necessary," Sookie lied.

She could've plenty done with that money but she didn't want to exploit her friend's bad fortune. So Arlene had given her the best section, up front, where people went when they were out celebrating or where tourists sat if they erred off the beaten track and ended up in Bon Temps. As a result, Sookie had a good view of the door at all times, so she saw Ginger immediately when she walked in, the late afternoon sunlight making a halo of her blond hair.

"Ginger?" Sookie said, watching her look around tentatively.  
The other woman's face lit up and she began broadcasting thoughts of relief and delight.  
_So glad she's here working tonight don't know if I wanted to spend my afternoon driving around Hicksville has she put on weight? Maybe she's got another bun in the oven... Is that her second or her third?_

"Sookie!" Ginger cried and wrapped her up in a hug.  
Behind her there was a young man and a woman Sookie's age. The man was clearly two-natured, probably a were, possibly one of the young ones from Alcide's former pack. His thoughts were snarled and foggy but his main focus was wondering about the food they served. The woman was odd: she had long coppery-coloured hair that had, at some point in the day, started out pinned up on the top of her head, but now her hair hung in loose waves around her face. She had pale skin, which was only emphasized by the fact that she was wearing black: a black top, wide black pants and black heels. She wore no jewellery except a plain watch and a chain around her neck, the bottom of which was tucked underneath her shirt.  
Sookie thought she looked like a teacher. No, a university professor: edgy and smart, the way those women on the TV were when they came on to talk about feminism and gender equality and the rest of that stuff that no one in Bon Temps had a clue about. 

When Sookie tuned into the strange woman's thoughts, she was met with a wave of gibberish. She continued to smile and nod at Ginger, who was still talking about Fangtasia and their new décor and the guy Pam had hired to do it, but in the meantime the red-haired woman stared at her, broadcasting in a language Sookie did not speak.

"Who are your friends?" she asked Ginger.  
"This is TJ," Ginger said and smiled at him coquettishly. "He works for Eric."  
"And how is Mr Northman?" Sookie asked coolly.  
"He's fine," Ginger said. "Same as ever, I guess. But maybe you should ask her: this is his girlfriend, Maggie."

Sookie felt as though she'd been punched in the chest and instantly the other woman thought, _Ah, fuck, Ginger. Why did you have to go and say that?_  
"Nice to meet you," Sookie said brightly. "Any friend of Eric is a friend of mine. And what can I get y'all?"  
"A booth," TJ said. "I think we're going to eat."  
"Actually," the redhead said, "we were wondering if we might have a word with you?"  
She had a foreign accent. Sookie thought it might be English or Scottish.  
"Are you British?" she asked.  
"I'm Irish," the other woman answered.  
She stood aside, allowing Ginger to slide into the seat of the booth. She took a step closer to Sookie and lowered her voice, "Pam told me that you're part _sidh_."  
"Part she?" Sookie repeated, not comprehending.  
"Part _sidh_ ," Maggie said. " _Sidh_ : fae, the old people."

Her face was hopeful, hesitant. Sookie stared at her and Eric's girlfriend started to transmit: _I know you're a telepath. I guess you don't know the old ways, do you? I'm sorry, we were always told we had to address the sidh in Old Gaelic and I'm really crap at it and I always forget the greetings and everything. I'm babbling now, sorry about that. It must be hard to listen to this kind of verbal diarrhoea all the time._

"It's okay," Sookie said out loud. "I'll be finished at six and I have a few minutes to talk then. Why don't y'all order something first and when you're done, we can talk."  
She handed them menus and took their drinks orders.  
While she was at the bar, waiting for Darius to pour the drinks, Sookie couldn't help but stare at Eric's new woman. How long had they been together? Had they shared blood? Did he love her? Did she love him? She was pretty, sure, she had a confidence about her that a lot of women in Bon Temps didn't have.  
Sookie tried to imagine Eric with her. They probably talked about all kinds of smart things, like history. Opera. Shakespeare. Stuff he had always liked and Sookie had always hated.

Over the noise of the other patrons, she tried to tune into the Maggie woman's thoughts, but it was hard. She was shielding, purposely trying not to think of anything. Her thoughts were deliberately focused on the menu ( _What's catfish? And what on earth is crawfish?_ ) and the décor of the bar ( _I love the Christmas lights! The decorations are so sweet!_ ). Sookie was just about to tune back out when the woman thought, _I wonder if Eric celebrates Christmas. Or Yule. Maybe I should get him a big ol' tree and deck it out with really kitschy decorations, just to annoy him_.  
And the redhead silently snickered.

And Sookie watched a grin spread across the woman's face as she contemplated the Viking's discomfort with a great big Christmas tree in his living room. Somehow, it made Sookie more unsure about how she felt about her – because that's the kind of relationship she would've wanted with Eric, teasing him, pushing his boundaries, trying to shake up his implacable façade. The Irishwoman was obviously not one of the fawning fangbangers that he picked up at the foot of his throne and Sookie didn't know if she liked her more because of it (Eric had finally found someone brave enough to take him on and was more likely to be serious about her) or less (he's found someone brave enough to take him on and was more likely to be serious about her.)

She served their food and came back to clear the plates away.  
Ginger and TJ decided to go up to the bar for a few drinks, a decision that tactfully left the strange woman alone in the booth. Sookie gave her the check, which she paid with a generous tip, then returned to sit with her. She slid in opposite her so they could talk face to face.

"How's Eric?" Sookie asked. Maggie shrugged.  
"Fine, all things considered. There's a big vampire summit happening in a couple of weeks and Eric is not involved in it, yet has somehow managed to be in the middle of things at the same time."  
"Sounds like the same old Eric," Sookie said. "What brings you here? Why are you looking for me?"  
"Pam told me about you," she said hesitantly and Sookie knew from her flashed, fractured thoughts that Pam had told her all about Sookie. Far more than she would want any stranger to know and the other woman knew this. She was embarrassed.

"An old friend of Pamela's, my godmother Ilaria, went out in New Orleans on Saturday night, Sunday morning. She disappeared and hasn't been heard from since. Her companions say she'd been talking to some human woman when they left. The police interviewed the human and she said that they just walked out the door together and she pointed Ilaria in the direction of the taxi stand before they parted ways. But Ilaria didn't return to the hotel. There's CCTV footage of her leaving the restaurant with a blond woman but that's it, she literally disappears without a trace."  
"So you want me to go with you down to New Orleans to find the blond woman and see what she knows?"  
"Yes," Maggie said. _Yes, please. Please, please help me,_ she thought."Pam says she'll pay you generously. She's already provisionally booked you a flight tomorrow; we'd fly down in the morning and be back in the early evening. We just have to visit the restaurant as soon as it opens in the morning and ask around. That's all."  
"Any time I have ever worked with vampires, for vampires – heck, _near_ vampires," Sookie said, "it has ended in disaster. Real, messy disaster. I have a family now, a husband. A child. I don't want to dip my toes back into their shit again."  
"I understand," Maggie said, "but we'll be travelling by day, there'll be no vampires, just you and me and TJ. And he's really nice and sweet, I swear."  
"And what does Eric think about this?" Sookie asked.  
Maggie looked uncomfortable.  
"He doesn't know?" cried Sookie, reading her thoughts. "Why doesn't he know?"

And then the red-haired woman told her the entire story, a story that began with an absconding husband in Dublin and ended with a missing vampire in New Orleans.  
"So you're living in Eric's house – " Sookie felt a pang. She'd never even been to Eric's house. "– pretending you guys are, like, vampire-married and now you want to go back to New Orleans without his knowledge to look for this Ilaria person?"

Maggie considered it and suddenly Sookie understood that she and Eric weren't just pretending to have a relationship; something really was going on between them, but the Irishwoman didn't know herself what it was.  
"That's it," she said. "We're going to lie by omission. We just won't tell him what we're planning to do or later on what we got up to. It's none of his business, anyway."  
And suddenly Sookie got a wave of feistiness from her. "And if he finds out and he's pissed off, I'll deal with him," she added. "I'll tell him where to go jump off."  
Sookie didn't doubt that she would.

"I have to discuss it with my husband," she said, "and if he's okay with it, he can look after my daughter, Adele. I'm not crazy about the idea but I sure could do with the money, so you tell Pam that I'll accept whatever she offers plus thirty per cent."  
"Fine," Maggie said, delighted. "Her offer plus forty per cent."  
"I said thirty - "  
"I'm pretty sure I heard 'plus forty per cent," Maggie shrugged.  
Sookie couldn't help but smile - just a little.  
"And you're not going to tell Eric that you met me?"  
"No, I'm not."  
"Then you'll need to shower long and hard when you get home, because he'll smell me for sure and be suspicious," Sookie said.  
"Okay, I'll do that."

Maggie stood up and signalled to TJ and Ginger at the bar.  
She held out her hand and Sookie took it, shook it.  
"It's so nice to meet you," she said sincerely. "I know Eric holds you in very high regard."  
Sookie looked at her and she felt the familiar sense of bereftness, the bittersweet pull.  
"I hold him in high regard, too," she said stiffly.  
Maggie nodded and in her thoughts, Sookie heard her try not to think about Eric and Sookie together and what that meant or might mean.  
"Ready to go?" said the were, TJ.  
He had a beautiful, radiant smile. Sookie couldn't help but smile back at him and noticed how many woman in the bar, young and old, were unconsciously smiling with him.  
"Ready," Maggie said and she leaned over and kissed Sookie on each cheek, very foreign-style.  
The other patrons in the bar that were watching them chuckled and rolled their eyes – _Prolly a damn Yankee,_ Sookie heard someone think.

Ginger hugged her twice at the door.  
"I love this bar, honey," she said. "I love it. Best pork chops I had in a long time. I'm coming back for sure, for sure."  
Sookie was pretty certain that Ginger would never darken the door again. TJ shook her hand, a warm, firm handshake.  
"Goodbye - and thank you," said Maggie.  
"One more thing," Sookie said suddenly. "The Christmas tree? He will hate it. _Hate_ it."  
Maggie looked startled, realizing what Sookie had heard.  
"So you have to do it," Sookie whispered. "And get an Elf on the Shelf while you're at it."  
"What's that?" the redhead whispered back.  
"A creepy little Elf that's suppose to spy on kids before Christmas. TJ will tell you. Every other American home has one. It will freak him the fuck out."  
"Okay," Maggie whispered conspiratorially. "I'll let you know how he reacts."

And they laughed.  
Thinking of Eric's grimmest disapproving face, Sookie was still laughing when she closed the door of the bar.

\- - - 

_Thanks for reading along! I'm glad the story is resonating with you, readers, and that you are enjoying the extension I've created of the world of the TV series. I hope I'm staying (kind of) faithful to the way they were portrayed, while expanding the story a little bit as well. I always appreciate your comments, Truebies! (Bloodies? What are True Blood fans called anyway? Hmm...)_


	21. XXI

TJ drove us home.  
It was slow going: we got stuck in traffic, snaking our way through Shreveport's suburbs on what TJ claimed was a shortcut. Ginger became increasingly anxious, wriggling in her seat, pulling at her seatbelt.

"Eric is going to kill us," she announced and then repeated it over and over in multiple variations on the theme: "We are so dead. He is going to kill us all stone dead. We are going to be so killed."  
"Why, Ginger?" I asked finally.  
"Because he's gonna be awake when we get back and he's gonna know you went to see Sookie. And hold us responsible for taking you to her."  
"Don't be ridiculous," I scoffed. "He doesn't need to know, it's none of his damn business. Just keep your mouth shut and let me handle it."  
"He'll smell her!" Ginger said, snapping her seatbelt open so she could stick her head between the passenger and driver seat. "You heard what she said. You reek of Sookie Stackhouse."  
"Maybe he'll be at Fangtasia when we get back?" TJ volunteered helpfully.  
"He won't!" Ginger wailed. "He don't come in till later! He's gonna find out!"

It had been a long day. I was fond of Ginger but in no mood for hysteria.  
"I'll figure something out," I said firmly. "Chill, Ginger."  
She just looked at me and shook her head.

When we finally got to Eric's house, it was dark outside but some of the lights were on in the windows. Ginger was practically shaking with fear and she'd managed to upset TJ as well. He was clutching and unclutching the steering wheel, his handsome face was drawn and tense.  
"Let me just say one thing," I said, turning around in my seat so I could see them both. "I do not like how this man terrifies you. He's just a big bully and I'll stand up to him even if you won't. He's not going to kill anyone. He's not going to even yell at anyone – and if he does, tell him to fuck off. This was my task, my job, my decision. You two have nothing to fear."  
They nodded at me wide-eyed.  
"Grand," I said. "Now let's put our elaborate plan into action."

Our elaborate plan consisted of me opening the front door and running up the stairs shouting, "I have to pee!"  
I was relying on the vampire dislike of bodily functions to keep him at a safe distance. Ginger and TJ were doubtful, but I assured them that it really was as simple as that.

And the plan, simple and all though it was, worked like a charm.

I opened the door and waved at Eric in the living room. He stood up to approach me, but I held up a hand and made for the stairs.  
"I have to use the bathroom!" I shouted, "We got stuck in traffic and I desperately need to wee!"

He started back as though I might wee on _him_ , so I took the stairs two at a time, ran into my bathroom and stripped my clothes off, stuffing them under the previous day's wet towels in the hamper.  
I washed myself like a surgeon before and operation: as quickly as I could, scrubbing my skin with the only scented soap I possessed and washing my hair twice. When I got out of the shower I was pink-cheeked and smelled of vanilla.

I wandered into my bedroom, pleased with myself, and found Eric sitting on my bed. He rose when I came in and gathered me to him in my towel.  
"You smell different," he remarked.  
"Do I?" I asked, rubbing my hair. "Probably a different soap or something."

He started nuzzling my neck. The previous night had ended with him depositing me at my bedroom door with a courteous "Good night." His encounter with the vampire strangers had made him a bit distant and preoccupied; he had disappeared into his room and left me to sleep alone in my chilly bedroom.

Now, however, he was back on form but I had more important things on my mind.  
I started pulling on my clothes, even as he made a sound of disapproval. I got dressed quickly, staying out of his reach, and then went downstairs with him in tow, grumbling under his breath in Swedish.  
"Who were the vampires at Fangtasia yesterday?" I asked, settling on the sofa. Eric sank down beside me, looked at his hands, then up at me. He blinked once or twice, weighed up giving me an answer, then replied:  
"That was the King of the Islands."  
"The one with the dreadlocks?" I asked. "The _man_?"

He'd pretty much been in the background the entire time, I'd barely noticed him except in the shadow of his more enigmatic and magnetic sibling.

"Yes, of course the man," Eric said, amused. "The title kind of gives it away."  
"Who was the woman, then?" I asked.  
He looked over at me. "Didn't you have a lesson on the King of the Islands at Vampire School?" he asked. _I shouldn't have told him about our familiarization course_ , I thought.  
"Yes," I said. "He's the king of one of vampiredom's oldest and most influential territories. The islands of the West Indies, the Caribbean, are as important to vampire lore and history as New Orleans on the mainland."  
See? I'd learned the script off by heart.  
"The King of the Islands," I continued, "is Pierre Sauvant, he was turned some time in the 17th century and he has ruled since the end of the 18th century. How's that?"  
" _Brava,_ " Eric said. "But who turned him?"  
I racked my brains. I knew this one. "A vampire called Nanette," I said slowly. The details were fuzzy, but a light went on in my head: "That was his maker, wasn't it? The woman who looks like his sister?"  
"That's correct," said Eric, checking his rear-view mirror before turning, "And she's not his sister, she's his mother."  
"His _mother_?" It came out as a squeak. "A mother turned her own child?"  
"She was turned when he was just a baby. A quarter of a century later, she returned and turned him. She has guided him ever since."  
I took a couple of seconds to process that. "It sounds like the ultimate Oedipal Complex," I said. "Bound to your mum for eternity."  
Eric nodded. "Yup," he said shortly.  
"And what were they doing at Fangtasia?"

Even as I watched him, I could see the thoughts in his head being censored and selected for communication. I hadn't known him long but it sometimes felt that I could see his thought processes flit across his face.

"They were sent to me," he said carefully. "By Queen Catherine. She knows we've known each other for a long time because Nanette and my maker were companions for a century. So she knows they respect my opinion on vampire matters. She asked me to speak to them about the Charter."  
"Speak to them about the _Charter_?" I was beginning to sound like a very squeaky echo. "Are you working for Catherine? What did you say to them? What about your agreement with Ilaria? With us?"

Eric took a deep breath.  
"I was summoned to speak to the Queen of Louisiana before we left New Orleans," he said matter-of-factly. "She told me to watch you and see what you were communicating to Dublin. I was also charged with trying to influence you against the Charter – you know, subtly talk about how dangerous it is and what a bad idea it is, in general – and to use my influence on other vampires to the same end."

I was outraged.  
I mean, that's exactly what _we'd_ asked Eric to do, but I didn't realize he was going to end up being … being a double agent.  
I spluttered in indignation, trying to find the words I needed.  
"So what did you say to them?" I asked finally. "What did you tell the island vampires?"

"The truth," he answered simply. "I said that the Charter in and of itself was an inevitable step in our social evolution and that it would eventually be of use to our own. But in the immediate future it would result in far more control and micromanaging and even more moronic paperwork than we currently have."

"Are you _serious_?" I hissed. "One of the world's most important vampire leaders comes to you – to you, God only knows why – for a second opinion on a matter that is of utmost importance to your kind and you diss it because there'll be more … more _bureaucracy_? You'd rather have widespread defanging than a bit more _paperwork_? Are you effing _kidding_ me?"  
"I hardly expect _you_ to understand, Magdalena," he said in a haughty tone. "Did you not see what I had to do tonight? Every stupid vampire supplication has to be written up, filed and submitted to the monarch. I spend ten minutes listening to some idiot whine about another idiot feeding on his human and I have to spend 30 minutes filling out an online template reporting what was said, who said it and what was done. Things were a hundred times more efficient when we just took care of what needed to be done. No questions asked. No paperwork and no paper trail."

"And there was often total anarchy," I cried. "Lynching. Guerilla warfare. Vampires disappearing without a trace. That's why things changed in Europe. We've been following the principles of this Charter for a century and it _works_. We are the proof that it works."

"Don't be silly," Eric said coldly. "You _think_ it works and your rulers pretend it works. Do you think the Old Emperor never took matters into his own hands? Of course he did. Charles was notorious for getting things 'fixed'. That's what he called it: _fixing things_. Things got fixed, no questions got asked. The difference between you and us is that we do our fixing openly. You Europeans do it underhandedly."  
"That's not true," I said, but they were words I could not be sure of.  
The Old Emperor had been venerated and much loved, but how was I to know what happened behind the scenes during his reign?

Eric shrugged in a way that said _Whatever_ and that infuriated me more.  
"So I take it you think the Charter is just a heap of bullshit?" I asked.  
He shrugged again.  
So help me, I wanted to smack his smug face.  
"Like I said to Pierre Sauvant," he said coolly, "it is an inevitable step, but it will not be to our immediate advantage. Anyone who thinks otherwise is stupid."  
He turned from me and took a lighter from the mantelpiece, bending to light the kindling in the fireplace.  
"So you think I'm stupid?" I demanded.  
He didn't answer.

I balled my fists and before I did something that could be truly categorised as stupid, I stomped back upstairs to get away from him.  
On the way, my telephone started to ring and I pulled it out of my pocket. It was Stephen.

"Please tell me you have good news," I begged.  
"I don't," he answered, subdued. "She's officially been registered as missing and the police have been notified. There will probably be something about her in the media in the next few days. I don't suppose you've heard anything, have you?"  
"No," I said and I started to cry.  
I hated crying: I rarely cried out of sadness, but I often cried when every other emotion joined force and they all surged up and overwhelmed me. It made me feel weak.  
No, _stupid_. It made me feel stupid – something Eric Northman had already established that I was.

"Don't cry," Stephen said in alarm and I could hear the panic in his voice. "Don't cry, Maggie. Listen, I'm going to get into my car now and I'll be there in three or four hours. Just before dawn, ok?"  
"You won't make it before dawn," I said. "It's all right, Stephen. I've just had a tough few days and I guess I just needed to let it out. I'm fine, I really am. I'm just worried about her."  
"It'll be okay," he said. "I promise you. We'll find her, we'll fix it."  
_Fix it._  
Damned vampires and their fixing.

I went into my room and shut the door, my fingers automatically flying to where a key should have been. The door had no lock.  
I went into the bathroom, put down the toilet seat and sat with my head in my hands, allowing myself to cry in frustration and helplessness at Ilaria's predicament, at my own situation.  
And my own stupidity.


	22. XXII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not safe for work or for the eyes of the innocent. You have been warned, my bloodlets.

I was sitting up in my bed with only the bedside lamp on, scrolling through friends' Instagram and Facebook posts and reading about normal lives going on in a normal parallel universe that I was no longer part of. Christmas trees were going up. Friends were fretting about that availability of the latest trendy toys that every kid wanted for Christmas. Pictures of carol services and work parties were being posted.

And I was alone, sitting on a vampire's spare bed in a far away country, worrying about a missing friend.

When Eric knocked on the door half an hour later, I didn't say anything, fully expecting him to barge in anyway.  
But he didn't.  
He waited silently outside till I eventually said, "Come in."

I continued to scroll through my Instagram feed, head down, so he wouldn't see my blotchy face and red nose.  
He cleared his throat – which he physically didn't need to do, just a token human gesture.

"I presume Ilaria Moore has not turned up," he said.  
"You presume correctly. She has officially been reported missing."  
I continued to scroll, trying to ignore him.  
"Magdalena," he said finally. And paused. "Magdalena, I beg your pardon."  
"Okay," I said briefly.  
"I didn't mean to imply you were stupid. You're not. You're very clever."  
"Yeah, I'm sure you think so."  
"I do," he said earnestly. "You have never struck me as dumb. On the contrary, I think you are very smart. I have read some of your papers: you're good. Your instincts are good, your research is thorough and you write well."

Now that surprised me. I'd written a couple of academic papers about some of the carbon-dating research being done on a number of swords at our museum and other museums in the British Isles, mostly Viking-era blades. It was a very special-interest topic but, I realized, probably of special interest to the Viking in front of me.  
"Okay," I said again. "Fine. Good night."

He lingered, still and silent in that infuriating vampire way.  
A human would have the decency to fidget and feel awkward; a vampire just stands there and wears you down with their ability to imitate a statue.  
I finally looked up at him with a frown.

He approached the bed, one step, two steps.  
I narrowed my eyes in warning.  
"I'm hungry," he said.  
"You have a fridge," I said. "Open it up and look inside. My blood was offered in return for you doing your best to influence opinion in favour of the Charter, something you are absolutely _not_ doing, so I consider the deal to be off."  
"You're very brave," he said casually, "Acting as though you had a say in the matter."

I hopped off the bed, a virtually ineffectual move as it only served to emphasise how much smaller I was than him, but I shook my finger at his chest.  
"I really do not appreciate these veiled threats."  
I didn't have to affect a warning tone; I was rattled and my voice barely rose above a snarl. _The fucking cheek of him!_ I thought.

Eric looked at me, motionless, and then did a complete _volte-face_.  
"You're right. I would not take your blood without your permission," he said humbly.  
He took one step closer and extended a hand.  
"Do you accept my apology?" he said.  
Suspecting a trick, I eyed his hand suspiciously.  
He just turned his hand a little, palm upwards, in a beseeching way.  
Slowly, I stretched my right hand out and we shook.  
"Apology accepted," I said, as his large, cold hand took my warm fingers in his.

A shock ran up my arm, like a surge of electricity.  
I felt his blood pulse – which was ridiculous, he wasn't alive; he had no pulse. But something pulsed, as though my blood had become his, and a little jolt went through me, down to my inner core.

"Do you feel that?" he said.  
"What is it?" I asked.  
"We are blood bonded," he said. "Your blood responds to mine. When you feel bad, I feel it. I feel worse when I've caused you to feel that way. I am sorry."  
I stared at our hands, mine almost invisible in his.  
"I am sorry for calling you stupid," he said. "And I would like to feed from you because I miss your blood already. I like it when you are near me, I want to be in a bed with you. That's the truth, the naked truth."

His face wore its habitually guarded expression, and I could tell he was trying to gauge my reaction, ready to pull away if I pushed him. Instead, it made me feel stupidly teary-eyed again. It was probably the most honest thing anyone had said to me in days.

"Very well," I said, and I spontaneously put my other hand up to pat his cheek.  
He rubbed his face against my palm, pressing his jaw against me. He really had the instincts of a large cat.

I slipped into bed and he shed his clothes.  
He had no sense of self-consciousness or embarrassment – these were human emotions. Our bodies are a source of constant critique and worry to us; vampires see theirs as a vessel or a tool. Male, female, naked, clothed - they don't really make a big deal of it, it's a body, they've seen hundreds of them. They grow, they develop, they age, they decay. Nudity? What of it?

I, on the other hand, was raised in a very chilly country where people are generally not naked for kicks and laughs, so I was back in my fleecy pyjama bottoms and my old t-shirt, with the blanket pulled up to my neck. I watched him quickly fold his clothes – my goodness, he was neat – and admire him. 

Actually, I _ogled_ him unashamedly. Eric was long-limbed, with big hands, long feet and big …. other bits. I blushed and pulled the blanket up a bit higher. He was not thin, but his body was tightly muscled. When he bent to move his shoes out of the way, muscles rippled in all kinds of places I could barely bear to look at. 

I squeezed my eyes shut, feeling the bed depress as he slipped in beside me. A hand slipped across my stomach and up to my breast – _this was starting to become its favourite resting place_ , I thought – and he nuzzled his nose against my ear. I turned on my side to face him, exposing my neck to him and waiting for the click of his fangs, but he continued to rub against my face, his fingers stroking my back and down to my bottom.  
He kissed me gently.

"Can we go back to the other night?" he whispered. "Before Pam barged in?"  
"Very well," I whispered back.  
He pulled my shirt up a little.  
"This is where we were before we got interrupted, right?"  
"I think so," I said.

He tugged my shirt over my head – or, at least, he tried, but he tugged with a bit too much enthusiasm and his knuckles made contact with my jaw, knocking my teeth together with a clack.  
"Ow!"  
"Sorry, sorry," he said apologetically, as my head emerged from the knot of clothing.  
"No worries," I muttered and tossed my shirt on the floor. 

He started kissing me, pushing me back against the bed, running his hands up and down my body, teasing and stroking and rubbing and exploring. I tried to respond appropriately, but there were a lot of limbs and fingers banging about: at one point he tried to dip down to kiss my breasts and ended up kneeing my shins.  
I bit back a cry but he noticed my discomfort and came back up, so we were face to face.

"Are you all right?" he asked, concerned.  
He leaned on his side, head resting on his elbow and lazily stroked my shoulders and breasts.  
It tickled uncomfortably and I wriggled out from under his hand, resisting the urge to smack it away.

"You're just very … _big_ ," I said.  
I tried to make it sound non-accusatory but I didn't succeed.  
His lips twitched a little.  
"Well, I can go really slowly," he murmured.  
"No, not _that_ bit." I blushed a bit: _that_ bit was big, too. "The whole lot of you. There's just an awful lot of arms and legs and knees and elbows in a relatively small space."  
He laughed and, leaning forward, he managed to pin my hair under his elbow, causing my eyes to start with tears of pain.  
" _Ouch!_ " I yelped.  
"Sorry," he cried, startled and moved away from me in fright.

I rubbed my scalp.  
"Maybe we're just not sexually compatible," I said dolefully. "Our physical relationship seems to be doomed. We could just be platonic friends. Share recipes, go to musicals. Shop for shoes together."  
"I think you need a girl friend," Eric said. "Or a gay friend. But I don't think I can fulfil these needs. I don't like shopping - or musicals."

He pulled me closer, so we lay chest to chest, his groin pressed against my thighs, my feet dangling below his knees. His body was cold and I couldn't help but shiver. He drew the blanket up around my shoulders but he still chilled me.

"Maybe I need more of your blood," I suggested. It had worked the last time: I'd been totally off my rocker and as jolly as Santa Claus.  
"I'd rather not feel that we could only enjoy each other when you were rendered blood-drunk," he said.  
Fair enough.

"Have you dreamt of me?" he enquired, but I shook my head. He paused delicately. "Have you … fantasized about me?"  
"No," I said, trying to be nonchalant. It wasn't really a lie. I hadn't fantasized; I'd _speculated_.  
"Have you fantasized about _me_?" I wanted to know.  
"Of course," he returned quickly.  
"What, then?" I asked boldly, one of those questions that slip off your lips, leaving you already dreading the answer.

Eric shifted a little so he could look at my face. "I imagined what it would be like to call you up on stage in Fangtasia and have you kneel between my legs."  
He watched me picturing this in my head and continued, "Then you would take me in your mouth…"  
Said mouth dropped open a little.  
"… and take everything I have to give you."  
He stroked the hair back from my face and a fingertip brushed my lips.

I gulped and turned my back on him, so he wouldn't feel the heat on my cheeks. He just gave a low, husky laugh into my hair and pressed up against me. He was hard and suddenly, my insides were molten.

I moved against him, allowing him access to between my legs. Very, very gently he pushed inside and I grabbed a fistful of the pillow and squeezed it tight. Good grief. Fireworks exploded in my body.  
"Breathe," he whispered. "You are not vampire."

I exhaled the breath I didn't know I'd held and moved beneath him.  
"Look," he said in a low voice and pointed across the room.  
By the dim light of the bedside lamp, I could see our reflections in the dressing table mirror. He flung off the blanket, exposing our tangle of pale limbs, then looked at reflected me with a gaze of intent, of purpose, moving faster and faster. I endured it as long as I could, then a guttural noise escaped my throat and I just surrendered to my pleasure. 

He gasped – I swear, he gasped – then gave three, four quick thrusts before I felt his coldness spill inside me.  
"Good," he said, his voice a croak.  
He kissed my neck, my jaw, then I turned my head and he kissed my lips.  
"Very good," I agreed and he grinned.

We lay on the bed in a mess of sheets.  
Eric leaned over and I knew what he wanted: I pulled my hair aside, but he raised my arm and sank his fangs into the crook of my elbow. He lay his head on my stomach and licked the wound, then rolled off and pulled me up against him.

"Dawn is coming in a couple of hours," he said. "Will you spend the day with me in my room?"  
"Part of the day," I promised. "I'm going to meet TJ and buy some things in town."  
"You're going to need to buy some vitamins," he said, rubbing his stubbly chin against my shoulder, "Ask a pharmacist. They do fangbanger mixes, with all the extra vitamins you're going to need."

Yup, I most certainly was _not_ going to ask a pharmacist.  
I was going to sneak into a drugstore and skulk up and down the aisles till I found them, then pay for them in cash with a hat pulled down over my face.

Eric rose from the bed and stuck out a hand, pulling me out behind him. We padded, naked, down the hall to his room, where he pulled me into the shower. We soaped each other down very thoroughly and tested a couple of new (to me) and very dangerous (wet, slippery tiles) positions, then put on our nightclothes and slipped into the bed. 

Eric was gone within seconds: his face relaxed and settled into a statue-like countenance and he was absolutely still.  
"Eric?" I whispered, but he did not reply.  
His body was there, but his consciousness was gone.

I lay in the bed and enjoyed aching in places that hadn't ached in a while. I set an alarm to wake me before sun-upso I could snatch a couple of hours of sleep.When my phone buzzed, I woke and got dressed, ready for my trip to New Orleans. I wasn't, strictly speaking, lying to Eric. I was going to meet TJ and we were probably going to buy stuff in town - the town just happened not to be Shreveport.

My phone flashed with a WhatsApp from Pam:  
_Let me know when you've finished banging. I'm outside._  
I grabbed my bag and went downstairs.

\- - -

"So," she said, "I hope you had a fun time. He's quite talented."  
I felt a blush rising. Stupid Celtic skin.  
She just smirked and pulled away from the curb.

"Anyway," she said briskly, "I rang Hofmann and he told me Ilaria's disappearance has been reported to the police. I tried to get as much information from him as I could about the night she disappeared but he just said she'd been chatting with some blond human and that was the last he saw of her. I, however, have a number of theories about what may have happened."  
"I'm all ears," I said.

Pamela raised a finger, its long nail was no longer cerise but a classic blood-red.

"One: she was kidnapped by drainers. She's very old and her blood would be valuable. There are a couple of gangs operating in and around New Orleans and Baton Rouge and they probably didn't realize how well-connected she was. More fool them, then, taking one of the Empress' retainers."  
"Okay," I said. "That's one possibility."

"Two," Pam continued, another finger up, "one of Catherine's people abducted her and possibly killed her by accident, or she got killed in the skirmish. They might have been trying to persuade her to give them information about the Empress' motives and who Moya will be in league with when the summit starts."  
I nodded. I wouldn't put it past Queen Catherine. She was that kind of ruthless.

"And, finally, three: one of your own people killed her. I don't know why: a jealous fight? Too many piglets at the trough, all vying for the top position in Moya's retinue? Or maybe – "  
Pam stopped and looked at me, hesitant.  
"Maybe it was punishment for letting you besmirch yourself with the infamous Eric Northman. After all, you'd been promised as tribute to the King of the Islands and now you're worthless to the Empress because you belong to another vampire. A vampire that none of her entourage particularly like, if Stephen Hofmann is to be believed."

"One or two," I said firmly. "The Empress' people are a pretty tight-knit bunch. They don't go around stabbing each other in the back. And having someone take Ilaria out, Mafia-style, is just so _not_ Moya. This is the woman who's campaigning to introduce open trials for vamp-on-vamp crime, for crying out loud."

Pamela stared at me, probably trying to figure out how much I believed what I'd said. But here's the thing: I believed it from the bottom of my heart. It just didn't make sense that one of our group would do her any harm.

"Well then," she said, "Good thing you're going down to New Orleans. And Eric doesn't know?"  
"No."  
"You weren't tempted to tell him? _Ask_ him?" she said, glancing sideways at me as we took a turn-off for the airport.

It wasn't an argument I even wanted to have with him. I didn't want to test how far he would go to prevent me from setting off for New Orleans. The outcome of that argument was too unpredictable and I felt nervous about even broaching it, a situation that made me feel uncomfortable.  
It made a lot of alarm bells ring, but still on a post-sex high, I ignored them.

"I know," she said simply. "He can be very stubborn. Sometimes it's best to work around him, rather than try to go through him."  
"That's deceit," I said. "That's not a good foundation for any relationship."  
"Relationship?" she repeated quickly.  
Weakly I said, "Friendship."  
"Hmm," she replied to that. 

She pulled up in front of the departures area and handed me three tickets.  
"You'll be back mid-afternoon. Ask Sookie to drop you back to Eric's place. Shower all the fairy-shit off you and he'll never know you were gone."  
"Yes, ma'am," I saluted.  
"Find the woman who spoke to Ilaria," she warned, "Or I'll want to know why not."

I gulped. Pamela meant business.


	23. XXIII

We sat beside each other on the plane, Sookie and I.

TJ had made sure he nabbed the seat on the other side of the aisle and had determinedly closed his eyes, even before the plane took off.  
Sookie and I smiled stiffly at each other and buckled up. It was a tiny plane and it wobbled worryingly as it took to the sky. Her lips moved and I strained to hear what she was saying over the sound of the engines, thinking she was talking to me. But she wasn't; she was praying. Her fingers were gripping the armrests, her knuckles were spots of white against her tanned skin.

When we'd finally settled in, I turned to her and found her waiting expectantly.  
"You've been reading my thoughts again," I said.  
Sookie smiled her stiff little smile, chin up defiantly, corners of the mouth jerked upwards.  
"You were thinking pretty loud," she replied.  
"Ask me about him," I said. "It's like having a very large undead elephant in the room. What do you want to know?"

She shook her head. "The better question is: what do you want to know?"  
"Do you still love him?"  
She stared at me as though I were stupid.  
"Of course I love him," she said. "He saved my life a couple of times, we shared a lot of stuff. I got to know a really nice guy with this amazing sensitive side – "  
Sensitive? Were we talking about the same Northman?  
"No, he is, really – he is. And he's funny and caring and a wonderful lover."

She paused and I prompted her with a "But …?"  
"But I don't _love_ love him. Like, I'm not _in love_ with him. But … sometimes I miss having him and Pam – and even Ginger in my life, you know? I love my husband, I didn't know what it meant to really and truly love someone till I met Luke and I didn't think it was possible to love someone more till I had my daughter … but that whole time with Eric and Bill was just this unbelievable time in my life and I miss it."  
I nodded. I had no idea who Bill was, but I didn't want to interrupt.

"Like," she continued, "sometimes I'm typing up the notes for the Women's Social on my computer and I'm just writing away about Portia Bellefleur's win at Northern Louisiana's Third Annual Horticultural Contest and I think, 'What the fuck?' – excuse my French," she added.  
"No problem."  
"Four or five years ago I was fighting for my life and the lives of the people I love, and now the most exciting thing I do nowadays is write about Portia Fucking Bellefleur's fucking azaleas for the Women's Social newsletter!"  
She sat back in her seat. "Pardon my French, again," she said.  
"Really," I said, "It's fine."

We sat in silence for a moment or two, listen to the roar of the engines, rocking gently in the plane.  
"I know how you feel," I said. "When my husband left me, I wanted to kill him. I actually wanted to take a blunt object and bludgeon him to death – except I couldn't get out of bed and I was permanently blinded by tears. Then I spent a lot of time hating him. Now, I don't hate him any more – and I don't love him either – but I really mourn the life we had together. We had this whole existence as a couple, then he walked out and all of a sudden it was gone. Our life as a married couple was all gone, like it had never happened."

Sookie was staring at me, frowning in concentration.  
"But…" I said "… but that doesn't mean I don't care about him. That doesn't mean that I'm not curious about his life and what he's up to. I mean, I'm no longer at the point where I wish he'd get gangrene in all of his extremities and have them all fall off – which I consider to be a great step forward, by the way – but it's not as simple as flicking a switch and all the feelings go away."  
She nodded, "Yes, that. Without the gangrene. I bear Eric no ill-will or anything."  
I shrugged.  
"So you don't mind me …" I paused, trying to find the right word, "You don't mind me ... um... consorting with Eric?"  
"No," Sookie said firmly. 

She looked at her hands, twisting in her lap, like she was wringing an invisible cloth.  
"On an emotional level, I'm a bit jealous. Okay: I'm jealous. But not because you're with him and I'm not, but because of the way you're with him."  
"Sorry?"  
"You're, like, well-educated and sophisticated - "  
I snorted.  
"Seriously? I bet you have tons in common. I think that if I didn't have this stupid fairy blood, he and I would never have been together."  
"I'm sure that's not the case," I said sincerely. "You're smart and quick and have this great innate intelligence. I can see why he liked you."  
" _Innate_ ," she said. "That's why. Because I don't use words like _innate_."  
"Oh, please!" I said. "Stop selling yourself short."

She looked at me, weighing something up.  
"See, one time we were in bed. It was at a time when he was … different. When we were together and it was like this perfect relationship, this little bubble of happiness. And we were talking about places we'd love to go and visit, and I said I wanted to see Paris. And Eric was, like, 'Yeah, we should go to Europe. It's amazing. We could go to France and Germany. I want to take you to Berlin and Munich. And we could to see _The Ring_ together.' And I said, 'I've already seen it. I went with Jason and Jessica to the Cinemark Theater in Shreveport.' Then he just looked at me with this expression of pity on his face. No, not even pity, just a kind of tenderness: _poor stupid little Sookie_."

She turned to me.  
"I bet you know what he was talking about, don't you?" she asked defiantly.  
I nodded, feeling a bit shitty about my know-it-allness.  
"Wagner's Ring Cycle," I admitted. "It takes place in Bayreuth, in Germany, at a famous opera festival. But I doubt he thought you were stupid."  
Sookie looked away.  
"Yeah, well, that kind of thing happened a lot. He could make me feel so good about myself and so bad about myself at the same time. The thing is, he wasn't trying to. But I think we both knew that at some point what we had would just peter out, we basically had nothing in common. And it did, eventually."

The flight attendant announced that we were due to land in New Orleans in minutes.  
Spontaneously, I grabbed Sookie's hand and gave it a squeeze.

"I can understand perfectly why he liked you," I said. "But I've lived around vampires all my life and I can tell you sincerely that I know few humans that have ever had a long-term relationship with any of them that did not end in heartbreak. If you were lucky enough to find love elsewhere, you should cherish it."  
She smiled, a real smile that rose up and filled her eyes.  
"I do," she said, and squeezed my hand back.

\- - - 

When we got to New Orleans, Sookie led us out of the airport and hailed a cab.  
Our chat on the plane seemed to have changed something in her, now she was leading the way like a small, blond Mary Poppins, her ponytail bobbing in time with her quick steps. We got out in downtown New Orleans and Sookie carefully pocketed the cab driver's receipt.  
"For Pam," she said, as she folded it away. 

TJ got out his phone and we entered the address of the restaurant into Google Maps. Pam had sent me any information she'd gleaned by email: I had a couple of names and a few very short newspaper articles from online sources that simply reported a missing European vampire, part of the visiting Empress' retinue. The police had declined to comment as to whether they thought foul play had been involved.

"This way," Sookie announced and she marched off across Jackson Square and down towards the waterfront. She led the way to Fusion, the last place Ilaria had been seen alive, stopping in front of it and presenting its door to us with a flourish, like a magician.  
While Sookie and TJ peered in the windows, I looked around.  
It overlooked the waterfront and a couple of small jetties. There were plenty of street lights and it was only a stone's throw from Jackson Square. It was hardly the kind of place a person – or vampire – disappeared into thin air. 

I looked up and saw three CCTV cameras within walking distance, so Ilaria must've been captured on film more than once, something the police - and most likely the Queen - had in their possession.  
"Hello? Helloooo?" Sookie was calling. "Could you open the door, please?"

There was the sound of locks clinking and the door opened.  
A black woman in a black and silver tunic with 'Fusion' written in the same swirly font stood in front of us with a look of tried patience written all over her face.  
"Whatever y'all are sellin', we ain't buyin'," she said and made to close the door.  
"No, excuse me, ma'am-" Sookie said. "We just wanted a quick word with the owner."  
"He ain't here," the woman said. "And if he were, he wouldn't be buyin' nothin' either."  
"We're not selling anything, ma'am," said TJ, stepping in between Sookie and the Keeper of the Door.

He gave her a full-wattage grin, all _aw-shucks_ charm.  
The lady looked him up and down with an expression of faint approval.  
"I know ya'll are workin' hard and all, but I was wondering if your boss could just spare us a couple of minutes. See this woman here has come all the way from Ireland to look for her missing friend," TJ wheedled.  
"She came all the way from _Iowa_?" the woman said, incredulous.  
" _Ireland_ ," I enunciated. "From across the sea."  
And I waved out at the waterfront, as though I'd just pulled up in a galleon.

"Ireland, uh-huh. You here about that missing vampire?" she said suspiciously. "'Cause if so, you don't wanna talk to Mr Trey. He want nothing to do with that whole scandal. It has nothing to do with this bar, she didn't go get her little ol' self lost on our premises."  
"Then could we speak with – "  
Darn it. What was the woman's name, the blond woman who worked at the bar? I'd seen it in one of the articles Pamela had sent (…'local woman Michelle Hernandez might be the last person to see Ilaria Moore alive' …) "With Michelle," I said, as it occurred to me in a flash of inspiration.

"She's not here," the woman said quickly. She looked a bit shifty.  
"Will she be at work later?" Sookie asked.  
"I don't know," the woman said and she was lying – even I could tell that without the benefit of telepathy. "And, no, before you ask, I won't tell you when she's working because that kind of information ain't none of your business."  
"So I guess that means you can't give us her address?" Sookie wondered.  
"No," said the woman. "Now, if you wanna talk to Mr Trey, you phone up and make an appointment like the police did. Like that vampire queen did. Like them other vamps with the funny accents did. You get me?"  
"Yes, ma'am," TJ and Sookie chorused. The black lady glared at me. My agreement was also needed, it seemed.  
"Yes," I said and added a "Ma'am."

The woman closed the door on us and we heard the locks clank shut in our wake.  
"That didn't go too well," I said, unhappily.  
"It went great," said Sookie. "What someone says and what they think are two entirely different things. When I asked her if Michelle would be at work later, her first thought was to remember that she was coming to work today before making up a lie. When I asked her for the address, the woman immediately checked that she knew where Michelle lives and established that she should be arriving any minute by bus. While she was hoping we'd be gone before she came down the street, she was telling us to make an appointment with Mr Trey." She snapped her fingers. "Simple as that."  
"You are a genius," I said admiringly.  
Sookie beamed momentarily, then set off on one of her Mary Poppins' marches.  
"This way!" she said, heading for the bus stop.

We scampered behind her, stopping when a bus drew up.  
We stood in a little huddle, watching the people disembark. Sookie's face was set in concentration as she tuned into their thoughts.  
"That one!" she whispered and pointed at a blond woman her own age. Sookie gave me a shove.  
"Excuse me," I said. "Are you Michelle Hernandez?"  
"Who wants to know?"  
"I'm a friend of Ilaria Moore, can I speak to you for a minute about her?"  
"For crying out loud!" the woman shouted. "I'm sick of telling people that I don't know! I don't know what happened to her!"  
"It's okay," Sookie said soothingly. "We don't think you had anything to do with it. We're just trying to retrace her last steps, that's all. This woman here is her godchild and she's travelled all the way from Ireland to try and find her."

Well – not strictly true but it certainly made Michelle Hernandez more amenable to me.  
She glanced at her watch and said, "Okay, I guess if she's come all the way from Iowa I can spare five minutes. Otherwise I'm gonna be late for work."

We sat down on a bench and she began immediately.  
"We were chatting at the bar. I'd finished my shift and I was waiting to catch my bus. On the nights Trey doesn't come into work, we sit up at the bar for a drink before we leave – he doesn't like staff hanging around with paying guests, see. So, anyway, she was waiting to get her check because she was leaving ahead of her friends. I heard her accent and asked her where she was from. We get vampires and tourists in from all over the world, but I'd never met no one from Morocco before I was just asking her about it, you know."  
She looked from one of us to the next, then carried on.

"So she paid the check so we just happened to walk out together. She turned left, down towards Jackson Square, I guess to get a cab. And I turned right towards the bus stop."  
She pointed at the stop she'd just got out at. Michelle raised her shoulders helplessly.

"And that's it. I went home, I called my mom because I got mugged on the way home last month so now I call her every night. I yelled at my neighbour to turn down his TV. A normal night, right? Till the police came banging on my door."

Her face darkened. "You have no idea what a nightmare this has been. They were implying that this Ilaria woman and I hooked up. You know, I took her home, fucked her and killed her or something. Just because I'm Latina, they presume I'm selling drugs or something. Like I lured her home to get her blood and sold it off to all my besties or something. Luckily for me I got into a fight with my neighbour, right? Gave me a pretty solid alibi."

Sookie patted her shoulder sympathetically.  
"You poor thing," she said softly. "So you went down this direction and Ilaria walked off behind you. And you never looked back? You didn't look around, not once?"  
Michelle looked confused. "No," she said, uncertainly.  
"Not once?" Sookie said in a funny tone. "Think, Michelle. Not even once?"  
"Nooo," she said in a wobbly voice. "I don't know. Maybe."

Sookie's hand was still on Michelle's shoulder.

"Who was the dark man?" Sookie said.  
I started.  
Michelle was looking at her, her expression rapt. TJ frowned at me but I put my fingers to my lips. It was like being at a séance.  
"Who was the dark man?" Sookie repeated. "Think about him. What did he look like? Did he walk away with her?"  
"Yes," Michelle whispered. "He walked away with her. Down there." She pointed out towards the water. "They went down to the water. Then the bus came and I got on."  
Her voice changed, brighter and louder.  
"I went straight home and called my mom. I got mugged last month, right, so I call her every night."  
She looked at us all again and smiled.  
"Thank you, Michelle," said Sookie. "We won't keep you any longer."


	24. XXIV

"She's been glamoured," Sookie said. "I don't know by who. Deep down inside her somewhere, she can remember a dark man. I don't know if it's a Caucasian guy with dark hair or a Black guy –"  
"Or a Latino or an Asian," TJ added, unhelpfully. "Anyone with dark hair, basically."  
Sookie sighed.  
"Or maybe a big woman - " he began again.  
"Thank you, TJ," I said.

"Anyway," Sookie continued, "I couldn't tell from her thoughts. The man led Ilaria away, down to the oceanside. And if that's the case, if he did do her harm, her remains have long been washed away by the tides."

That made everything seem worse: now Ilaria was almost certainly gone and there would be nothing left of her to prove anyone's guilt. I felt like crying and momentarily covered my face with my hands.  
"There, there," Sookie said. "At least now we have a lead."  
"It was dark, he was dark," I moaned. "It's not a great lead. We don't know if he was vampire or human. If she went with him voluntarily, she probably knew him and given how many vampires she knows, that casts a pretty wide net."  
"What about the people she was with that night?" TJ asked.  
"She was with two men, one human, one vampire. They stayed on in the bar for a while afterwards and went back to the hotel. They just presumed she'd already got back."  
"Might one of them have done it?" Sookie asked.

I snorted.  
"Aside from the fact that one of them is a German forester who wouldn't know which end of a stake is up and the other is basically a vampire civil servant – not really the murdering types – they were both there, in each other's company, till they left together. They were seen by the bar staff leaving together and the taxi man confirms that they shared a cab to the hotel and neither seemed to be covered in blood."  
That's just the thing: when you stake a vampire, there's a lot of blood.  
Sookie checked her watch.  
"Let's take a little walk by the ocean," she said "And go back to Fusion for lunch."

Neither Michelle nor the black woman – Rhonda – seemed thrilled to see us traipse through the door at 11.05.  
"Hi and welcome to Fusion, New Orleans' oldest vampire-human bar and restaurant," the Rhonda rattled at us when we'd taken our seats. "My-name-is-Rhonda-and-I'll-be-your-server-today."  
She handed each of us menus.  
"Mr Trey is still not here," she said warningly. "So don't think you can trick me into letting you speak to him."  
"It's fine," I said. "We're genuinely just hungry and this place looked nice."

Rhonda was slightly mollified.  
She read us off the day's specials: there was a lot of meat in many varieties. The humans' menu was nearly as bloody as the vampires'. I flipped to the back of the menu where the vampire bloods were listed: Fusion had an impressive range of domestic and imported synthetic blood.  
We all ordered steak, TJ wanted his bloody but Sookie and I asked for medium. Rhonda _hmmph_ ed, as though we were two cissies but refrained from further comment.

The restaurant was very modern.  
Unlike a lot of places that catered to vampires, there was no black to be seen. Instead, the surfaces were gleaming blond wood, with lots of climbing plants on trellises on the walls. It was really nice – bright and cheerful. As we sat there, people started to trickle in and by the time Rhonda brought our lunch, the restaurant was already half-full.

I kept an eye on the entrance. It was situated to the left of the long bar. Patrons had to stop at the greeter's podium before they entered the restaurant properly. To use the restroom, you had to walk past the podium and out into the entrance hall, then go downstairs to the basement level. The restrooms, I'd discovered on a recon trip to the loo, were furnished in the same blond wood, with shiny taps and fixtures. There was even a restroom for vampires.

Curious, I pushed open the door. There were no toilets, just sinks and mirrors so the vamps could freshen up. Interesting. I'd never been in a restaurant with separate facilities for the undead.

We ate our meal and left, speculating about whether anyone might've seen Ilaria from the windows of the restaurant. Sookie vehemently struck the idea down: while I was paying, she'd moved discreetly down the restaurant, peering out the windows. If Ilaria hadn't walked past on the pavement directly outside, she wouldn't have been seen behind the parked cars across the road, Sookie insisted.

\- - -

"What's next?" I asked. "How do we go about getting a hold of the CCTV footage?"  
"It's all in private hands here," said TJ unexpectedly. "The police would probably be able to demand anything they needed. I guess they would've gotten anything that was useful."  
"So let's go to the police station," Sookie said. She was tapping something into her phone. "It's not far. Come you guys, hop, hop. You need to shed some of those steak calories."  
TJ and I hurried after her and I couldn't help but hum 'Just A Spoon Full of Sugar' under my breath as I followed her swinging ponytail.

The police department looked like someone's stately home. We went in past rather majestic columns and made our way to the desk. The police officer on duty was as ginger as I but far more freckly. His badge said 'Gallagher'.  
"This one's yours," muttered Sookie.

"Excuse me please, officer," I said. "Officer Gallagher."  
"You Irish?" he asked. "Only the Irish would say 'Gallaher' and not 'Gallager'."  
He gave me a wink and I returned it with my broadest smile.  
"I am, to be sure," I said and cringed inwardly. I had a feeling that I'd have to aim for Darby O'Gill levels of Irishness. "I was wondering if you would be so kind as to help me. I'm looking for someone in the homicide division."  
"Committed a murder, have you?" Officer Gallagher said.  
I gave a peel of laughter.  
"Oh, you're so bold, so you are. No, I'm here about the disappearance of the vampire Ilaria Moore. I'd like to talk to the person in charge of her case."

Officer Gallagher snapped to attention, suddenly cold.  
"And who may I say is asking?"  
"I'm her godchild, Magdalena Kennick."  
"Do you have any information about the case?"  
"No," I said slowly. "Not really."

Officer Gallagher stared at me, then picked up the phone and spoke to someone.  
"There's a bunch of Irish people here to see you about the Moore case. Yes, of course they're human, sir Three of them."  
There was the sound of someone talking, then Officer Gallagher put down the phone and pointed at some seats.  
"Sit down over there," he said curtly. "You're lucky this is a slow day, you know."

"He doesn't like vampires," Sookie whispered. "You just sank way down in his estimation."  
"Yeah, like I really care," I muttered. "So rude."

We waited for half an hour. TJ had got restless after only ten minutes, so I'd sent him off to amuse himself, telling him we'd phone when we were done. We waited nearly an hour and were starting to worry that we'd have to leave to get our taxi to the airport. I stood up and started to gather my bag and sweater when suddenly a man came striding through the double doors and in our direction. He was wearing a police officer's uniform, which surprised me. I thought he'd be in a suit, like the detectives in the films.

"You the Irish?" he said, short and to the point. "I'm Officer Clark."  
"Yes, we're the Irish. Magdalena Kennick, Sookie Stackhouse," I said.  
Sookie nodded silently. She and I had agreed that she'd stay as quiet as possible so she could concentrate on listening in.  
"C'mon," he said.

He led us into an office and sat us down.  
We weren't alone; there were four or five desks, each manned by a person in uniform. He pulled over a file and flicked it open.  
"Ilaria Moore, personal assistant to the Empress Moya of Europe," he read, lending extra sarcasm to the word _Empress_. "Disappeared Saturday night, Sunday morning. No eyewitness accounts, no sign of a struggle, no evidence of foul play. You wanna help me out?"

I was a bit taken aback by the rapid-fire aspect of his delivery.  
"No, I mean: yes. But I can't. We actually came to you looking for more information," I said.  
"Where were you Saturday night?"  
"In Shreveport," I said.  
"Got an alibi?" he shot at me.  
"Yes, lot of them," I returned quickly. "Look, I didn't do anything to Ilaria, I came here to find out what happened to her. If I'd harmed her, I'd hardly turn up here, would I?"  
"You'd be surprised," Clark deadpanned. "So whaddya wanna know?"  
"I know she was caught on camera leaving the restaurant. Have you checked the other camera feeds from the street?"

He made a face of mock astonishment at me and pretended to scribble down a note.  
"Check all cameras on the street," he said, "Got it. Great idea. _Of course_ we checked the cameras," he snapped at my bewildered face. "That's Policing 101, Miss – what did you say your name was again? Kenneth?"  
"And there's nothing on any of them?" I asked, ignoring him.  
"No," he said. "Obviously."  
"Obviously what?" Sookie asked.

He looked at her for the first time.  
"Well, if we had, say, evidence of someone abducting her or of her getting into a stranger's car or into a fight, then we'd have a suspicion of murder and this would be being handled by the homicide division. But as it stands, it's just as likely that she … ran away."  
"Ran away?" I repeated. "Yeah, that's not likely."  
"Why not?" Officer Clark said. "That old guy from the Empress' staff said that she'd been moping around, that things weren't going the way they'd planned at their summit-thingy and she was afraid she'd be held responsible for what was going on. Do you have any reason to believe that she might've just wanted to leave? Disappear into the night?"  
"No," I said indignantly.  
And then I wondered: vampires were very good at disappearing.  
"Fine," he said. "Then we gotta stop here, I have an appointment. You have nothing you wanna tell me, I got nothing I can tell you, so we're at a stalemate." 

I was about to argue but Sookie shook her head ever so slightly.  
"Thank you for your help, Officer Clark," I said. I didn't try to hide my sarcasm. We waited till we were outside, then Sookie and I spent a couple of minutes coming up with as many insults for rude Officer Clark as we could.

"He wasn't lying, though," Sookie said. "They really don't have anything more. Your guys are pressing for some kind of criminal investigation, which they can't do because there's no evidence of a crime, and the Queen's people are telling them that Ilaria was depressed and probably just walked out on the whole thing."  
I sighed.  
It had been a long and aggravating day and it was time for us to get a taxi back to the airport.  
I started to dial TJ's phone number but Sookie pointed him out, walking towards us with his easy, loping walk. We watched him admiringly as he walked down the street, attracting glances from passers-by for his ear-splitting grin, as he swung a shopping bag in either hand.

"I often get the feeling that cartoon bluebirds should fly around his head when he walks," I said admiringly.  
"Yeah," Sookie agreed. "He's just too pretty for this world, inside and out." 

_\- - -_

We said goodbye to TJ at the airport and Sookie drove me back to Eric's place.  
The last rays of December sun shone bravely through the clouds. I figured I had about an hour till he rose.

"Huh," she said, when she drew up in front of his house.  
"I know, right?"  
"I guess I was expecting something a bit more ... a bit more ..."  
"Impressive?"  
"Yeah. Not a fucking cobble-lock driveway," she said. "I must admit, I am disappointed."  
I laughed. "Thanks, Sookie."  
I got out and bent down to wave in the passenger window.  
"Tell Pam my bill is on the way," she said and with a toss of her blond ponytail, she drove off.

__


	25. XXV

I scrubbed myself.  
Holy moly, I don't think I had ever gotten quite as clean as I was after meeting Sookie Stackhouse.  
I scrubbed between my fingers and toes, under my arms and behind my knees, in case there was any lurking fairy smell. By the time I got out of the shower, Eric was up and waiting for me to leave for Fangtasia. He was wearing a suit.  
"Whatcha got planned?" I asked.  
"You'll see," he said - my least favourite kind of answer. I didn't want to wait and see, I wanted to _know_.  
He waited impatiently while I made myself a sandwich and when he realised I had planned to eat it in his shiny new car, he waited even more impatiently while I ate it - slowly and with great relish - before we set off.

"You try my nerves, Madgalena," he said as I packed my phone and wallet in my purse.  
"Sucks to be you, Eric," I laughed.  
His mouth twitched in a way that was becoming familiar to me: trying not to laugh and not quite succeeding.

Fangtasia had just opened when we got there and Pam was directing operations, ordering a hapless human out of one the cages suspended from the ceiling.  
"He's too ugly for my cage," she said heartlessly as the poor guy was sent packing back to his friends.  
_"You're not,"_ I mouthed at him as I followed Pam and Eric back to the office.

"Did you get what I asked?" Eric asked her and she nodded.  
Laid out on the leather sofa were three garment bags.  
A feeling of dread rose inside me.  
Eric smiled at me and waved a hand at the clothes.  
"I had Pam pick out some things for you," he said in a voice that indicated that he expected gratitude. I looked over at Pam and she had that same look of expectation on her face.

Now I know there are women who like it when their boyfriends or husbands buy them clothes, but I am not one of them.  
It makes my eyeballs itchy, makes me feel like a kept woman, when I'm perfectly capable of buying my own damn clothes. 

Silently I unzipped the bags.  
As I suspected, there were three dresses with expensive labels inside. Cocktail dressed with some tasteful sparkle and boning in the right places so the wearer's assets would be held up on show. And all of them were at least one size too small, and designed for women with no boobs and no bum, tiny, graceful little women and not strapping Irish girls.

"Do you like them?" he asked smoothly, coming up behind me so he could kiss my neck. I suddenly realized that he thought I was grateful, that I was silent because I was overcome with emotion.  
"Mmmm," I said.  
Pamela clapped her hands in delight.  
"Do you want to try them on?" he murmured, his arms around my waist and his nose in my hair.

"Sure!" I squealed. "Yippee!"  
I pulled one off the hanger, a beautiful little dress in rich black velvet, and stepped away from him, whipping my t-shirt off.  
Eric grinned widely, oblivious to my sarcasm.  
I unzipped the dress; the chest section bodice would have held two mandarin oranges, so when I pulled it over my head, my breasts spilled out over the top and the zip snagged around my butt.

"I love it," I breathed melodramatically. "I just love it! How did you know my size?"  
I did a twirl, and a boob fell out and Pamela clapped again.  
"Oops!" I said and tucked it back in. "Might have to keep an eye on that, otherwise I'd say it's just perfect."  
Eric roared with laughter.  
"Fine," he said. "Fine, I get it."  
"Don't buy me clothes," I snapped. "I'm not your hoor."  
"Hoor?"  
"That's what we call them in Ireland. A kept woman. Thank you for the thought: I'm sure in the Olden Days it was the done thing to present your little lady with a nice frock, but I'd rather buy my own."  
I put it back on the hanger with a tiny bit of regret. If it had fit me, it would've been a hard dress to turn down.

"Pam," he said, "I hope you have not underestimated Magdalena's ... considerable assets."  
Pamela sniffed.  
"I'm sure one of the other two will fit."  
"Why are you two trying to dress me up like a Barbie doll?" I snapped.

"Tonight we have official business. And you are my – " he stopped, "you are my consort and you should be dressed for the part."  
I felt my eyes narrow.  
"Your _consort_?"  
He shrugged.  
"What can I call you? My partner? My girlfriend? My lover? I'm the sheriff and you're my consort, I believe that's the official term."  
It still sounded a bit odd to my ears but I couldn't put my finger on it. It certainly sounded better than girlfriend or partner – I was pretty sure I was neither.

"Give me a few minutes to get dressed in peace," I said. "I'll do my best to dress…" I paused for effect. "... appropriately."  
Eric left the room with his sloping walk, giving Pam some order in Swedish. Once gone, she held up one of the other dresses, a grey sheath dress.  
"This one will fit," she said confidently. "It's roomy. I guess I just forgot that the good Lord had seen fit to stack you plenty."  
"Gee, thanks Pam," I retorted.

But she was right. It did fit.  
She pulled out a wide belt and cinched around my waist, giving me an hourglass figure. From her make-up bag she pulled a comb and dragged it through my hair, telling me to shut up when I yelped.

"There," she said in satisfaction and turned me to look in a long mirror on the wall.  
It looked good and I said so, with genuine enthusiasm. Slightly vintage but with a touch of Pamela's edge.  
"You should do this for a living," I said. "You'd be a really good stylist."  
Pam paused and bit her lower lip.  
"Actually," she said confidingly, "I'm thinking about it."  
"Really?"  
"I was going to open another bar, maybe in L.A. Or get into vampire events management, know what I mean? But all of that involves all the stuff I hate the most, namely the public. Not just the human public but the vampire public as well."  
She shuddered. "But on a one-on-one basis? I can do that. I can play nice and help some loser dress less like a moron."  
"Thanks, Pam," I smirked.  
"Well, really," she said and I noticed she didn't apologise.

"You won't tell Eric what I told you about me becoming a stylist, will you?" she asked as she tidied up.  
"Of course not," I said. "Do you think he'd mind?"  
"Maybe" Pam said. "But I mean, it's not like he's going to stay at Fangtasia forever. But, still, I'd rather keep it on the QT for a bit."  
"Is Eric planning on leaving Fangtasia?" I asked curiously.

Pam glanced at me.  
"I can't see him staying there for a lot longer," she said in her careful way. "He might move somewhere bigger, like New Orleans or Baton Rouge."  
"New Orleans is nice," I said. "But he'd be under the Queen's nose all the time. I can't imagine him liking that."  
"Hmmm," she said.  
I was beginning to realise that 'hmmm' was what Pamela said when she wanted you to know that she didn't want to say what she actually wanted to say.

"Can you imagine moving to New Orleans as well?" she asked casually.  
"Not really," I replied. "I think I'm going to look for work in London in the New Year."  
Pamela frowned.  
"London? Does Eric know that?"  
I laughed.  
"Pam," I said, "You both know I'm leaving after the summit. I'm booked to fly back to Dublin on the 26th December."  
"Hmmm," she said again.  
"Why are you hmmming? I'm getting the feeling that something's up and no one is telling me what's going on."  
"Why would you say that?"  
"For a start, where is Eric taking me tonight? Why am I getting all dressed up?"  
Pam looked sideways at me, then smiled her brittle smile.  
"It behoves him as sherriff to make his new alliance known. It's a good idea that the other vamps in the district understand that you are his – saves any misunderstandings later on. One way to do that is to simply take you places and have them all see that you are Eric Northman's property."

I shook my head.  
"Jeez, Pam, there are _so many things_ wrong with that speech, I don't know where to begin," I complained.  
"What do you want me to do – sugar-coat it? You say you grew up around vampires; that's the way it is. You are his, he's claimed you. Sure, you have a bit more prestige than the average Joe Human, but at the end of the day, you belong to him. Oh, don't get all worked up. Spare me the feminism. It works the same way in the human world: he's your vampire, he's loyal to you. Except no one talks about bonds of loyalty and fealty in the human world any more - more fool y'all - but as far as other humans are concerned, he's yours. Isn't he?"  
"I suppose so," I admitted grudgingly.  
"Besides," she said briskly, brushing me down with more force than strictly necessary. "You like him. He likes you. You get on well together, you have the right temperament to handle him and he seems to keep you amused as well."  
"I'm not sure he likes me," I said, expressing the kernel of doubt that had rattled around inside me since we left New Orleans. "I mean, I think he finds me tolerable, but I think my chief attraction is my usefulness to him."  
"What a quaint turn of phrase you have, Maggie. Yes, you're useful to him, but he _likes_ you. Can't you feel it?"  
"Feel it?"  
"You've had his blood, you can feel him. Can't you feel his happiness, his pleasure?"  
"Not really," I said. "I haven't really noticed anything unusual."  
"You're useless," Pam said scathingly. "Wait till he sees you. See if you can feel him then."  
"Fine," I said, exasperated. "I'll try tune into Radio Northman and see what he's broadcasting."

The door opened and Eric came in.  
I felt a surge of … oh, damn you, Pam … positive energy swell inside me. He was pleased with what he saw.  
He squeezed Pam's arm in passing and bent to kiss me on the cheek, rubbing his rough chin against my skin.  
"You look beautiful," he whispered and I felt something move inside me.

"I've got something for you," he said, bending his head to mine.  
He led me over to the desk.  
Pam glared at me in an _I-told-you-so_ way as he leaned over and picked up a little dark green box decorated with gold swirls.  
Oh, please, not jewellery, I thought - but it wasn't.  
When I opened the flaps, I saw six handmade chocolates, nestled on white tissue paper with the same gold pattern.

"I picked them out for you," he said. "You like chocolate, right? This one has salted caramel. And this one is dark chocolate – is that right? You say dark chocolate, don't you? Yeah, this one is dark chocolate with coffee cream. And this one has some kind of berry inside – "  
He was pointing at the chocolates eagerly, almost boyishly, trying to remember what was inside, even though their flavours and composition were a foreign language to him.  
I felt Pam's eyes boring into me and when I looked up over Eric's blond head, she inclined hers and mouthed, "See?"  
I nodded and suddenly felt a wave of affection for Eric. Just when I had convinced myself of that he was a scoundrel, he surprised me with some act of kindness that was almost ... human.  
Spontaneously, I kissed his cheek and he looked up.  
"Never mind," I said. "I'll just eat them all and guess what's inside, okay? Thank you, Eric. You are very thoughtful."

He caught Pam's eye, her sardonic eye, then straightened up.  
"It's not entirely altruistic," he said, suddenly distant. "I wish to taste your blood later. I would like to see what chocolate tastes like."  
"Of course," Pam smirked.

I popped the chocolate with salted caramel into my mouth and ate it slowly.  
It was delicious.  
Eric watched me curiously, but Pam just made gagging noises.  
"I'm going back to work. I don't think I can bear to watch your human masticate," she said to Eric.  
"Can I eat these in the car?" I asked.  
"If I find any chocolate on my seat covers, there will be hell to pay," he said in the same distant tone.  
"Cool," I said and popped another in my mouth. "Let's go."


	26. XXVI

I ate the chocolates and fell asleep in the car, my head lolling against the window pane.  
Eric woke me when we stopped, and I stretched, yawning and blinking, and looked at the clock on the dashboard. I had slept for an hour - where on earth were we?

He had parked on the gravel forecourt of a large house that looked like something from _Gone With the Wind_. While I was looking around at the dark, shadowy trees that surrounded it and the lighted windows, through which I could see people deep in conversation, Eric came around to my side of the car. He looked me up and down once again, then pulled the neck of the dress down an inch.

"Oy!" I said.  
"Where is the chain Pam gave you?" he asked.  
I showed him the chain and pulled the fang-pendant out of my bra where I usually tucked it away, so it wouldn't snag on anything. Most of the time I forgot I even had it on me. He nodded approvingly when he saw it.

"What is this place?" I asked.  
"It's a kind of gentleman's club – except it's not just for gentlemen. It's a private bar for vampires and their human friends."  
"It's not anything kinky, is it?" I asked suspiciously. "You're not leading me into some kind of _Eyes Wide Shut_ scenario, are you?"  
He laughed.  
"Not entirely sure what that is," he confessed. "It really is just a bar. And your eyes can - should - remain open."

Just a bar, my foot.  
It was sumptuous.  
Leather chairs were tastefully placed around low round tables. The sofas were upholstered in brocade, the same heavy cloth that hung from the windows. There was a small bar in each of the three large reception rooms on the ground floor and behind each bar were two uniformed servers. As far as I could see, no money exchanged hands. Drinks were served at the counter or brought to the tables on small silver trays. The vampires and their human companions barely acknowledged the blank-faced uniformed men, simply taking their glasses and setting them down on the ebony coasters.

Eric led me to a table in the centre of the largest room.  
The carpet sunk under my feet: it was a Persian carpet that featured a veritable zoo of animals, twisting and winding around twirling vines. He pulled a seat out for me and I sat down, patently aware that we were being watched. It wasn't hard to miss: some people were discreetly staring at us, craning their necks to look at some spot behind our heads, so they could take us in from the corner of their eyes. Others were gaping openly, nudging and pointing.  
Eric ignored them, so I did, too.

The waiter that appeared at our elbows didn't ask Eric what he wanted, he just stared at me silently.  
"A … um… a white wine?" I asked, unsure.  
Eric nodded his head a fraction and I knew my choice had been acceptable.  
"Dry, madam?" the waiter whispered.  
"Yes, please," I whispered back.  
It was that kind of atmosphere. 

Conversation resumed around us, a low murmur, punctuated only by the occasional clink of a glass and the solemn gong of a mantelpiece clock every quarter of an hour. While the waiter set our glasses down, I looked around the room. The clientele was chiefly vampire, but there were a number of humans as well. I knew the humans because they were pink-cheeked from the heat of the room (there was a roaring fire in the fireplace) and possibly the alcohol. 

The vampires ranged in human age from very young – there were a couple who'd been turned as teens – to unusually old. One woman looked like someone's grandmother. She was homely and plump, and her attempt at wearing 'appropriate' clothes was less successful than mine: she looked like she'd dressed for church.

"Can you guess another vampire's age by just looking at them?" I asked Eric.  
I'd always wondered about it but never thought to ask.  
He shrugged.  
"Sometimes you can – by the way they talk or dress. Based on how they look, no. Not unless they drop fang, of course."  
Like a human, you can tell a vampire's age by his teeth. The old ones had long fangs, often chipped or grooved from wear.  
"So how vampire-old is that lady over there," I said, subtly nodding at grandma vampire.  
Eric pretended to brush something off his pants and looked at her quickly.  
"Very young," he said.  
"How do you know?" I asked, curious.

"Because, first of all, in my day it was rare that someone would reach that age. And in my time as a vampire, you would never choose to turn an old person. They were rarely healthy as humans, why would you carry them over to vampire? Any old-looking vampires have been turned since the Great Revelation – seniors with enough money to pay for their turning."  
"You can _pay_ to be turned?" I asked.  
It was strictly forbidden – in Europe and the United States. Turning a human was almost a sacred task and formed an eternal bond between maker and progeny. Vampires that created other vampires without registering their progeny or, in Europe, their intent to create progeny, were strictly reined in by their authorities.  
Eric shrugged.  
"So they tell me," he said non-committally.

Four vampires approached our table. When they stood in front of us, they bowed.  
The youngest-looking – and, I realized with my new knowledge, possibly the oldest – extended his left wrist towards Eric and the others followed suit, covering the pulse in a gesture of deference.  
"Sheriff Northman," he said. "We are delighted to see you here again tonight and it is an honour you bestow upon us to bring Miss Kennick with you."  
I raised my eyebrows at Eric but he didn't glance at me.  
"Thank you," he said solemnly.  
"We just wanted to say that we are very pleased with your work and we are happy to support you in this and any future role."  
"Good to know."  
"And we are also delighted to acknowledge your choice of consort," the young-looking vampire continued.

There it was again.  
I kicked Eric under the table, but he continued to ignore me, nodding his head reflectively at the other vampire's words.  
"Thank you," he said finally and smiled at them.  
We all exchanged smiles, and then they went back to their tables. I wanted to asked him what had just happened, but I couldn't get him to myself: one by one, it seemed like every vampire in the Rhett Butler bar came up to shove their wrist under Eric's nose and tell him how wonderful he was and – oh, by the way – what a good job he'd done snagging himself a Kennick. _Bravo._  
I presumed this was some kind of fealty-swearing: maybe these vampires were too classy to come by to Fangtasia in their best leathers and lace.  
Perhaps Eric had to go to his thralls once in a while and let them kiss his ring.

We left close to 2 a.m. by which time I was extremely tired and slightly drunk.  
When everyone in the bar had come up and kowtowed to us, we were left in peace. I wasn't entirely sure what was happening, but whatever it was, it was going well. Eric was in a terrific mood and I finally saw how he could be when he was relaxed. He was funny and witty, his dry humour was offset by a mischievous grin. We laughed again and again, and I let him order me another wine. And another. We only left when I couldn't disguise my yawns any more, and even then I felt like a child being sent to bed when the grown-ups were all having fun.

"We'll come back," he promised. "And you need to go shopping with Pam - get a couple of cocktail dresses. And before you start a fight, they're on me. Or, better yet, on Fangtasia. I'll put them down as workwear and declare them against tax or something, okay?"  
I couldn't reply, I was too busy yawning.  
"Okay?" he repeated.  
"Yes, yes, fine," I answered distractedly. "I'll tell her."  
"And nothing too…" he paused delicately. " _Hoor-y_. Pamela tends to have quite … flamboyant tastes. It's crucial that you be clothed in a manner befitting your station."  
"Befitting my station, right," I repeated, surreptitiously glancing at my mobile.  
Aw, shit. Stephen had phoned. And phone again. And a third time.  
_Shit, shit, shit._

Eric grinned.  
"You made a good impression tonight," he said. "A lot of those vampires have never met one of the Five Families before."  
"What _was_ that?" I asked. "That whole pulse-pressing thing?"  
"As sheriff, I think it's useful to have my constituents renew their loyalty on a regular basis. It helps to establish the order of things – reminds them who's boss in this area."  
My instincts had been right: he had been doing a little tour of his fiefdom.  
He stretched a hand over and stroked my leg.  
"I'll show you my appreciation when I get home," he promised.  
"Drive faster," I smirked and, obligingly, he put his foot to the gas.  
We sped down the dark roads, the radio blasting. Eric kept glancing over at me, his face split in a broad smile and I couldn't help but grin back. I felt the same _clunk_ in my solar plexus that I was beginning to recognize as Eric's feelings, distinct to my own. It was weird.

My phone, still on silent, lit up. It was Pam this time.  
I answered it.  
"Are you and lover-boy on your way home?" she said in her characteristic dry drawl.  
"Yes, we are."  
"Goodie," she said sarcastically.  
"Pam?" Eric asked me.  
"Yes," I replied. "She wants to know if we're on our way back - " I started as Pam continued to speak down the line.  
"...So what do you want me to do with him?" she finished, annoyed. "He's at the bar."  
"Sorry, who?" I asked.  
"Stephen," she said. "Stephen Hofmann. He's come up from New Orleans to see you. Apparently you didn't answer his calls, so he took it upon himself to come up here. Now he's sitting in my club, at my bar, looking like the douchebag he is and totally ruining the vibe. Get back here and get rid of him."

"Shit, shit, shit," I said, only realizing that I'd said it aloud when I saw Eric's face. "Stephen's here, he's at Fangtasia. We have to go there now. Please," I added.  
Eric rolled his eyes and I didn't need any blood exchange to realize that he was really pissed off.  
" _Knulla honom_ ," he said sourly in Swedish.  
I don't know what that meant but given the set of his jaw, I knew it was probably not very nice.  
_Shit, shit, shit_ , I thought again.


	27. XXVII

Stephen was sitting at the bar and while I couldn't tell whether he was actually ruining the vibe, he certainly looked out of place between the gyrating humans and the predatory baby vamps.  
He didn't notice me approach because he was looking at the dancer in the cage, a thin blond woman who was covered in more tattoos than clothes. She was moving seductively, in time with the pulsing music, and he was watching her with his head cocked to one side, the way you would if you saw a strange animal at the zoo. 

When he saw me approach, his face broke into a wide smile and he retracted his fangs – but not before I'd seen them.  
I would've hesitated but with Eric at my back, I had no choice but to carry on.

Stephen wrapped me in a big hug and I leaned into him briefly, just long enough to get his familiar scent. My eyes teared up briefly, then I blinked them away.  
"You look well," he said and I couldn't help but feel that it sounded a little reproachful.  
"You, too," I said. 

And he did.  
For some reason, he looked more attractive than he ever had before – maybe I had to be away from him to really take stock of his appearance. His dark hair was, as always, immaculate and his grey eyes were curious, taking everything in. I'd forgotten the set of his regular features, the way he could look so thoughtful and introspective one minute and the way his whole face could light up with one of his rare smiles the next. I wasn't the only person in the bar who considered him pleasing – over his shoulder I saw two women at one of the ornate little tables watching us with eagle eyes, nudging and whispering, making admiring faces at the view of his back.

Which was just as nice as the front – just saying that for the record.

"Northmann," he said curtly to Eric.  
" _Herr Hofmann_ ," Eric replied, clicking his heels in a mockingly courtly fashion.  
"Is there anywhere we can speak privately?" Stephen asked me urgently, ignoring Eric's taunt.  
I looked to Eric for help and he threw me a bone.  
"My office," he said. "Come."

The dearth of grammatical structures gave me a pretty good idea of Eric's frame of mind, but there wasn't much I could do about it. I hadn't invited Stephen to Shreveport, it was hardly my fault.

Eric held the door open and indicated with a sharp nod that Stephen should go in.  
"I need a minute," I whispered to him. "Please don't kill him."  
I turned and headed for the toilets. Then stopped. "Or provoke him. Or be rude to him. Basically, say nothing till I come back."

I waited till Eric had gone inside and closed the door, then stood in the grotty little hall with my hands covering my face. It's what my father always called 'Maggie's hiding place': when I was small, I used to think no one could see me behind my hands. Sadly, as hiding places go, it's pretty shit, but it afforded me a couple of minutes to catch my breath and gather my wits.  
Then I pulled myself together and pushed open the door to Eric's office.

Stephen was sitting on one side of his desk, Eric in his customary chair on the other.  
Neither man was speaking – which, ordinarily, wouldn't mean much in vampire terms as they can happily co-exist in each other's company in total stillness, without anyone feeling the need to fill the silence.  
This, however, was a different kind of silence. 

I walked towards the desk and Stephen instinctively moved his chair a fraction, so I could sit on the spare seat beside him. I'd sat beside him in lecture halls and conference rooms all over the United States for weeks on end. He'd saved me countless seats beside him, always touching or tapping the chair to show it was designated for me. I don't know if the gesture was designed to aggravate Eric – I rather think it was just force of habit – but the Viking glared at me and indicated with a quick jerk of his head that I should come round the desk to his side.  
I chose neither option, standing at the end of the desk between them.

"Won't you sit, Magdalena?" Eric asked.  
"I think I'll stand," I answered. "Has something happened, Stephen?"  
He shrugged.  
"No, you've just sounded really strange on the phone. I thought someone ought to check on you and make sure you were okay. We've all been so preoccupied with the summit and Ilaria's disappearance, no one bothers to wonder if you're all right up here in this place with these …"  
Eric was staring at him, waiting for the end of the sentence.  
"… with these people," Stephen said.  
He looked at Eric with what could only be described as a sneer.  
"She's fine," Eric said. "More than fine, in fact. Most of the time, she's quite happy up here. And sometimes, if I may say so myself, she's very happy up here. _Orgasmic_ , you might even say."  
He smiled angelically at Stephen.  
" _Eric!_ " I hissed.

So fast I could barely see it, Stephen launched himself across the desk.  
He stood, bent over Eric's papers, face to face with the other vampire, their fangs extended. It seemed like time stood still, but it was probably only a second, two seconds. Then one of them snarled – yes, it sounded like a snarl – and, with the same speed, Eric jumped on to the desk, his large hand circling Stephen's neck and pulling him up to his height off the ground.  
He raised him till Stephen's head touched the ceiling, extending him as far as he could, so Stephen's hands could not reach him.

"Eric!" I shouted and started to smack his legs. "Put him down! Put him _down!_ "  
The office door was flung open and Pamela stood in the doorway, her hands on her hips.  
Her face reflected the bizarreness of the scene before her: her maker was standing on his desk, holding a kicking, flailing vampire at arm's length, blithely ignoring the human thumping his legs.

"Eric," Pam said in a warning tone. " _Skärp dig._ "  
Something about her voice seemed to cut through the haze of his rage and he opened his hand, letting Stephen drop to the ground. I made to help him up, but Eric was beside me in an instant, an arm around my shoulders to hold me back.  
Stephen stood up and I wriggled loose. I could see the marks of Eric's fingers on his neck.  
I wriggled free.  
"I want to speak to him alone," I said. "Get out. Out!" I pointed at the door. " _Out!_ "

Eric looked at me with a defiant look on his face, but I shook my head. I wasn't in the mood for any argument.  
"You two can go outside and continue your pissing contest when I've spoken to Stephen," I said in a low tone. "Get out."  
"Come on," Pam said and led him out.  
He looked over his shoulder as he left. I held his gaze steadily till the door closed behind him.

"Him, Maggie?" Stephen said. "You chose _him_?"  
"I didn't choose him," I said coldly as I took Eric's seat behind the desk. There were papers everywhere and instinctively I started to gather them up. "If you recall, I was talked into helping you guys out and I ended up with a vampire husband before I knew what was happening."  
"You could've turned him down," Stephen said. "You could've disputed the blood bond."  
Incredulously, I said, "You were at the ball, weren't you, Stephen? Or did you move so far away from me when the shit hit the fan that you didn't hear what the Queen said?"

It was a cheap shot and it hit its target.  
Stephen looked at the floor and I continued to stack Eric's papers, not knowing what I was doing but needing to occupy my shaking hands.

We sat without saying anything for a couple of minutes till I couldn't take it any more.  
"What's going on down in New Orleans?" I asked in conciliatory tone.  
He looked up, his face ashen, his expression downcast.  
"The Empress and what's left of the entourage had to move out of the Queen's fancy vampire hotel. She was pretty angry at first, but we persuaded her that it was for the best. We're in a smaller hotel on the edge of the city and we don't have to be on guard all the time."  
"What's _left_ of her entourage?"  
"Yeah, well, when it became clear that we wouldn't be working on the organization of the summit, she sent quite a few people home – her ladies-in-waiting, a couple of the legislators, the second assistants, Tomas, Pietro and Hans-Peter – "  
"Hans-Peter went home?" I asked. 

Damn it, I cursed inwardly. I really wanted to talk to him about the night Ilaria disappeared. I wondered if I had his German mobile number?

"They're supposed to return for the summit, so the Empress can at least make her big entrance with the representatives of the Five Families, but Hans-Peter is digging his heels in and says he won't be coming back. I've tried talking to him but he says he's going to send his daughter in his place."  
"Why doesn't he want to come back?" I asked, but in truth, I knew the answer.  
"He got spooked," Stephen said – which was the very answer I'd expected. "He just doesn't want to come back."  
He shrugged.  
"We can't force him, can we? If he doesn't want to do it, he doesn't want to do it. Maybe his daughter is the better choice, but she knows less about her family history than I know about popular music."

I smiled weakly.  
It had been a long-standing joke in-car joke that Stephen was not allowed to choose the radio station. He liked to choose pop stations and then complain non-stop about how rubbish the songs were and how little sense the lyrics made. 

Ice broken again, I asked him about Ilaria and the investigation. He could add nothing to the precious little I knew and basically confirmed our suspicion that the case had been downgraded from potential murder investigation to a missing person case.  
"I was told that she probably ran away because the summit wasn't going as planned."  
"Who told you that?" Stephen asked sharply and I blushed.  
My stupid mouth. I debated making up some kind of lie but decided against it.  
"I went down to New Orleans yesterday and asked around. I was at the police station and some officer told me things were going badly, so she just did a runner. What's going so badly?"  
Stephen sighed. 

"The Asians are here and they're already throwing their weight around. The Japanese are politely disagreeing with everything the Chinese contingent wants, and both of them disagree on principle with anything that changes the way they've done things for a thousand years."  
"Nothing new, so," I said sardonically.  
"The Middle Eastern vampires can't get visas, so they're not coming and it was hard enough to get them to agree to come in the first place. A couple of the African envoys are here and a few have already disappeared – "  
"Disappeared?"  
"Well, we have guys coming from places like Uganda and the Congo, where being a vampire is tantamount to signing your own death warrant. Apparently a few of them decided they'd rather take their chances as illegals in the US and they've just vanished into thin air. They've gone, gone underground. Which is why the police think Ilaria might've done the same. With four or five vampires legitimately doing a runner, it's hard for them to understand why the sixth mightn't do the same."

He shrugged again.  
"So the Queen is making noises about what a failure Moya's vision of the summit is and how she'll save what she can by offering an opportunity to discuss some of the secondary issues we'd slated for debate… I suppose that police officer was right: it's not going as well as expected."

We talked for a little while more and everything he told me just painted a bleaker and bleaker picture of the situation I had left behind. I felt immensely sorry for the Empress, too proud to return to Ireland before the event took place, but without any significant contribution to make to the summit she'd organized.  
It was a nightmare.

After a while, there was a knock on the door. I looked up, expecting Eric but it was Pam.  
"If you want to be back in New Orleans before sunrise," she said to Stephen, "you'd want to skedaddle. Eric told me to tell you that going to ground in Shreveport is not an option."  
Stephen stood.  
"No," he said stiffly. "It is not an option. I'm expected back in New Orleans tomorrow. Goodbye, Maggie," he said, turning to me with a regretful smile. "Please take care of yourself." 

I went around to the other side of the desk and gave him a hug. It didn't make me feel better; on the contrary, I felt worse. I didn't realize how much I'd missed him and Ilaria until I'd seen him again. His leaving was triggering a familiar pang of abandonment.  
"Stay in touch," he said and on the word touch, his fingertip grazed my cheek.  
I nodded, mutely.  
Stephen left without saying a word to Pam.  
She just stared at me, hand on hip, till she was sure he was gone.  
"Eric is displeased," she said.  
"When is Eric ever not displeased?" I muttered. "He seems to have a talent for being pissed off."  
She shrugged.  
"Just warning you," she said.

\- - -

Eric and I drove home.  
I wasn't in the mood for talking but I told him that I hadn't known Stephen was going to visit.  
Silence.  
And yes, I added, I liked him because he was a good friend and an old friend. And nothing had ever happened between us and now nothing ever would. For sure.  
Silence.  
And if Eric's attempted strangulation hadn't already proved the point, Stephen was perfectly aware that I was Northman merchandise and off limits, that much had been made abundantly clear by all the posturing in Eric's office.  
Silence.  
And I was not going to stop seeing Stephenor talking to him or phoning him. He was my friend. Eric would just have to frigging _deal_.  
More silence. I gave up. I leaned my head against the window and looked out at the passing houses.

When we got in the door of Eric's house, he grabbed my arm and I sighed, expecting a lecture.  
Instead, he kissed me.  
A really cheesy Hollywood kiss, pressing me up against the wall, setting a tasteful photograph of some dour Scandinavian landscape askew. Then he propelled me into the living room, where he stripped me of my coat, and pulled my top up so he could kiss the top of my breasts, along the lace of my bra. I pulled his t-shirt up and off and leaned in to nuzzle him. He allowed me to do it for a minute or two, kissing the top of my head, then he turned me around and leaned me over the back of the sofa, raising my hem, wriggling down my underwear. He leaned over my back kissing my neck, his hand snaked over my breast.  
I was breathing so fast, I could barely hear what he said.

"What?" I whispered between gasps.  
"Please?" he asked.  
"Yes!" I said and he thrust in, causing me to gasp out loud.  
He took me so quickly, so efficiently, with such focused purpose, that it was all I could do to grip the back of the sofa and let him take his pleasure. There was something immensely arousing about it, but I almost felt like this was more than sex. It kind of felt like a point was being proved.

When he came, he withdrew gently and turned me to face him, kissing my eyelids, my cheeks, my hair.  
I leaned in and he wrapped me in his arms.  
"Was that … okay?" he asked.  
I thought about my answer.  
"It was ... interesting," I said.

He laughed and pulled me towards the stairs as I pulled my clothes to rights.  
"Interesting sex," he said. "One of the more memorable compliments I've been paid. In what way was it interesting? Have you never done it like that before?"  
"That position? Yes. That purpose? No."  
"That purpose?"

I tugged his hand to stop him. We stood on the steps. I cupped his face in my hands. There were two spots of colour on his cheeks and his eyes were bright with adrenalin.  
"That wasn't sex, Eric. Or love-making or fucking or anything like that. You were marking your territory. Admit it."  
For a second he considered denying it, then he grinned, defiant.  
"Yes," he said and kissed my lips. "Mine."  
I shook my head in despair. "For crying out loud!" I said.  
"Come upstairs," he laughed. "I'll let you mark your territory with me."  
Still shaking my head, I followed behind him.  
_Why was I still surprised that vampires were incorrigible?_ I thought.

But I declined to mark my territory, as Eric put it, pleading exhaustion after a long night. He was happy to let me rest, quickly slipping beyond me and into his lifeless sleep. 

Truth be told, I couldn't shake the picture of Stephen on the way back to the mess in New Orleans, driving along the dark roads in steady concentration, complaining about the music to an empty car.


	28. XXVIII

The New Reich Chancellery,  
Berlin  
1940

The two guards on the steps did not move as he walked past them, but Eric knew that they followed him with their eyes.  
He walked through the great doors and across the hall, his feet keeping time with the ticking clock. No doubt the place was busy during the day, but at night it had the air of a building deserted, with many lights turned off or dimmed, not to be wasteful at a time when the entire country was being exhorted to do their bit. When he stopped at the desk, the second hand clicked into place and somewhere deep within the building, Eric heard another clock chime nine.  
He was, as always, exactly on time.

 _"Heil Hitler!_ " said the young man in uniform, extending his arm in salute.  
" _Heil Hitler_ ," Eric echoed.  
_The ridiculousness of it,_ he thought.  
" _Nordmann mein Name_ ," he snapped. An appointment at nine p.m. with … what was his name? Hofmann. " _Ich habe einen Termin. Mit Herrn Stefan Hofmann, um einundzwanzig Uhr._ "

Hofmann had told him his title, something like Oberdienstschaftleiterkommandant or some equally absurd Nazi conglomeration of German military words. He'd already forgotten it before he had time to write it down, so Eric tried a tactic he generally found successful: he drew himself up to his full height and barked at the underling at the desk, giving the impression that any omission was the fault of the listener and not of Eric himself.

The man on the desk was already phoning through and he signalled for Eric to take a seat.  
It allowed him a couple of minutes to take stock of the Führer's new Chancellery, a building designed by Speer and completed at great cost and unexpected speed. Too much marble, too many antlers. Eric thought it was clumsy and lacking in style: pretty much his estimation of the Nationalist Socialists in general.

" _Herr Nordmann?_ "  
A woman's voice broke his reverie.  
When he looked up, a vampire was standing beside him, holding a Manila folder close to her chest, with a polite smile pinned to her face.  
" _Kommen Sie bitte mit_ ," she said, indicating that he should follow.  
She'd been turned in her thirties, her dark hair was curled neatly and she wore a tweed skirt with a pale green twinset – very demure and unremarkable, perfect camouflage for a vampire. She led him down the corridors, through doors, up stairways - two paces ahead of him, not turning to check whether he was following or keeping up. Eric made no effort to keep pace; lagging behind, he could admire her trim figure and the tight knee-length skirt. As though she could feel his eyes on her, she stopped suddenly at a door and spun around.  
" _Bitte schön_ ," she said and opened it for him.

He went inside.  
The room was an office, but it was jammed with furniture. In the middle of the room there was a round table and chairs, the walls were lined with bookshelves, a couple of desks with typewriters and a telex machine. There were stacks of folders and papers everywhere. Eric looked around then took in the people who had stood to acknowledge his entrance.  
" _Heil Hitler!_ " they chorused.  
" _Heil Hitler_ ," he returned with as much feeling as he could muster.  
One of them came forward, a dark-haired man with a handsome face. He did not offer his hand – vampires rarely did – but instead mustered Eric up and down.

"Hofmann," he said in German. "Progeny of von Wilmersdorf, who was the progeny of Baier the Elder, who was in turn the progeny of Hansson."  
He pointed at the other four vampires in the room, one by one naming their makers and their makers' makers, including the woman who had led them there. She called herself Irmgard von Werden, but she was known in vampire circles as Ira. She was the progeny of the vampire Gaius, and did not know her maker's maker; she was, therefore, at least as old as Eric. He looked at her with new respect but she did not return it.  
In her opinion he'd spent too long staring at her backside.

"We were very glad to hear that you had returned to the German Reich, Herr Nordmann," Ira said, taking the centre seat at the table.  
With a wave of her hand, she motioned to the others to sit. Clearly she might have only been a secretary outside this room, but in it, she was the oldest and most powerful vampire of their assembly.  
"I have … business here," Eric said. "Private business."

The other vampires regarded him with the mildest of curiosity. Every vampire had some private business or other to attend to, they were not inclined to probe.  
"We hope your stay will extend beyond the completion of your private business," said Hofmann.  
His German had the crisp Prussian accent of his turning; Eric was still trying to remember the German he'd spoken when he'd spent time in the German-speaking states and duchies over the centuries. He was aware that his accent sounded odd and stilted, his cadence the tell-tale sing-song of his native Swedish, so he had said as little as he could get away with thus far.

"What is this about?" Eric asked.  
The summons to Berlin had been presented as an honour, but it was wrapped up in a veiled threat: Eric had entered the German Reich without permission from the Council in Dublin or, worse still, an invitation from the rival council in Berlin. He took it that the five vampires packed around the desk before him were the core administrators of the _Zentraler Vampirrat des Deutschen Reiches_ – the Central Vampire Council of the German Reich.  
He was not wrong.

The vampire Ira said, "We will not beat about the bush. We would like to invite you to join our ranks. You count among the oldest and strongest of us. Even though you hold land in the New World, you return constantly to Europe – so we take it that your Maker must also be here. The invitation extends to him, too. We would be honoured to have you with us."  
"Why should I … join your ranks?" Eric asked.  
He'd expected a lot of things, but not to be asked to join a Council that was presenting itself to the vampire world as the worthy successor of the authority that had sat in Dublin for centuries.  
They all looked at one another.  
Hofmann spoke: "We believe that this is the time to break with the old and create the new. The authority in Dublin represents the old world order but this new Germany is a symbol of all that is dynamic and modern."

Eric shook his head in disbelief.  
"You don't believe all of this National Socialist nonsense, do you?" he asked.  
Each of the five vampires around the table made some kind of noise of derision – a snort, a grunt, an exasperated sigh.

"Hitler is a buffoon," Ira said. "They can measure as many skulls as they like, but one human is essentially the same as the next. Jews, Christians – what does it matter? For the most part, they all worship the same god, read the same nonsensical texts. It's absurd. But that's what we've come to expect from humans, isn't it? Leave them alone and they'll essentially destroy each other with minimal interference from our side. No, we see this government as a means to an end."  
"What's the end?" Eric asked.  
"Revelation," Stephen Hofmann said smoothly. "When the war is won, we intend to reveal ourselves. The Nazis are obsessed with their master race: we will show them that we are the master race of the master race."

Eric laughed aloud, pushing his chair back from the table.  
"Are you serious?" he said. "Are you damned serious? You think you can reveal yourself to these idiots and they'll be _grateful_? Do you think that they'll _worship_ you? You're dumber than I thought."  
"We have infiltrated their government at all levels," Hofmann said. "At all levels bar the top, that is."  
He and Ira exchanged glances. Eric rolled his eyes heavenwards.  
"What?" he demanded. "Are you going to turn Josef Goebbels? Or Albert Speer? Or … or _Hitler_? You're crazy!" He enunciated the word: " _Wahnsinnig. Wahn-sinn-ig. Verdammte Scheiße!_ "  
"Keep it down," one of the other vampires hissed.

Eric stood up.  
"I think I'm done here," he said. "This has to be the stupidest idea I've ever heard and I've heard a lot of really stupid ideas. Revelation is not the dream, it's not the ambition. Revelation is what we work to _avoid_. You've become caught up in the Nazi mythology: we're not superhuman. Not one of us, not even the strongest in our ranks – " he used the term mockingly "can protect himself against the light of day. A _child_ could open our coffins and kill us all when we are sleeping. Don't you see? Today they gather up the Jews and Gypsies and send them to the camps, but five years from now, it will be _us_. Fools," he spat.

He straightened his jacket. "I'll continue on my business," he said. "You can take this as a rejection of your invitation."  
"Sit down," Ira said.  
He ignored her.  
" _Sit down!_ " she shouted and he felt an invisible hand press his head from above, a crushing weight that pushed him back into his seat. She smiled at him in satisfaction.

"Your feelings have been noted," she said. "But you're not just going to wander out of here and make your way through my territory. And how do I know you will not go back to our counterparts in Dublin and blab about our nice little chat?"  
Eric said nothing, watching her warily.  
"I don't plan on returning to Dublin. I'm going back to the United States when my business here is done," he said finally. "And, as I said, it's a private matter, a family matter. I have no interest in politics, in any council – in Dublin or Berlin. I can only give my word that your plans will be safe with me."  
"Your word is not enough," Ira said after a minute or two. "It will have to be your fangs, I'm afraid."  
"No," Eric said. "No, my word is enough. If you have my word, you have my honour."  
He struggled in the chair but he could not raise himself beyond a couple of inches. He started to thrash but this made her more angry: the weight on his head was almost unbearable.

Ira stood up and opened a cupboard door, withdrawing a small metal box, like the kind of box that held petty cash or receipts. She opened it and removed a pair of metal pliers.  
The other vampires looked at each other uneasily.  
" _Ira, bitte –_ " Hofmann murmured. "Is it really necessary?"  
"We either stake him or defang him," she said. "If we stake him, we will have to answer to Godric and I would rather not have to do that. If we defang him, he is obliged to keep his word to me for as long as I hold his fangs. To me the choice is simple. Oh, don't worry, Stefan. You won't have to do it – you're not strong enough to draw his teeth. You can telephone one of my children and tell them to have a coffin prepared – and some blood. We'll need a tankard of fresh blood, because he will not be able to feed himself for a while."  
"No," Eric said, "This is not necessary. No. _No_ – "

Hofmann passed by him and touched his shoulder, a tiny pat of pity. Eric looked at him wildly, but the other vampire left the room without a backward glance, following orders.  
Ira straddled him and two vampires held his arms. The third slipped on a pair of thin cotton gloves and removed a silver chain from Ira's box. He stood behind Eric's head and pulled the chain tight over his lips, the burning silver forced his mouth open. His fangs extended and he could not retract them fast enough. Ira caught one between the jaws of the pliers.  
" _Sie hätten sich zu uns gesellen sollen, Herr Nordmann,_ " she said with an ironic smile. You should have joined us.  
And then she yanked hard.

o-o-o-o-o


	29. XXVIX

He woke.  
Maggie was sitting cross-legged in the bed, watching him through narrowed eyes.  
"Does my blood ever give you nice dreams?" she asked curiously. "About puppies and rainbows and stuff like that?"  
Eric sat up in bed and felt his fangs.  
"Yes, sometimes," he said vaguely. "I dream of my family. My little sisters. My horses. Sometimes I dream of old friends."  
She nodded. "I take it that this was not one such dream."  
"No," he said. "Not old friends."  
"Old acquaintances, then?" she probed. "Old German acquaintances? Like Stephen, for example?"  
"How do you know?" Eric asked, worried. "Can you smell him?"  
Maggie looked at him, then nodded slowly.  
"Yes," she whispered, leaning in. "I get a waft of sauerkraut and sausage..."  
He looked at her, startled.  
She laughed. "No, of course I can't smell him, you noddy. You said his name and then you said _Nein_ about twenty times. My German's not great but I take it you weren't happy about something."

Eric pressed the flesh on the top of his thumb against a sharp fang, thinking.  
"What do you know about Stephen Hofmann?" he asked. "When did he turn up in Dublin?"  
Maggie studied him. "You know I'm not allowed to tell you about other vampires' entries in the _Book of the Undead_ ," she said.  
"I'm not interested in the _Book of the Undead_ ," Eric answered. "I want to know what _he_ told you. You must have asked him how and why he came to work for the Vampire Council in Dublin. Tell me, Magdalena."

She considered it, and then began slowly.  
"He defected in 1944. He left Berlin and crossed through the Low Countries and was smuggled into Britain by a bunch of vampires who first took him to London and then on to the Vampire Council in Ireland, in Dublin. Ireland was neutral at the time, but all vampire military operations – or military interference, I think is the official term – was conducted from there. He brought with him a lot of important intelligence, which was passed on to the appropriate human and vampire authorities. Ilaria always said that he probably helped to save a lot of lives."  
"And why did he say he defected?"  
Magdalena rubbed her nose, shifting awkwardly. "Look, Eric, I don't think that's any of your business, really."  
"It kind of is, in ways you could not imagine," he said quietly.  
She sighed. "He told me that he realised that he was on the wrong side. He thought that the Nationalist Socialists were going to do wonderful things for Germany and Europe. Hitler was this amazing visionary, with plans to reinvent the country and expand it to include all of the territories Stephen had known during his time as a human. But as the years passed, it became harder for him to ignore the atrocities. When he found out what was happening at the concentration camps, it was the last straw."

Maggie ducked her head so he wouldn't see that her eyes were wet. Eric shook his head: she was smart, perhaps, but like most humans, she was prone to be led by her impressionable human emotions.  
"He smuggled out papers and pictures – all kinds of information about what was happening at the death camps. The Old Emperor passed them on to Allied intelligence and sent some of his best vampires to help out after the D-Day landings."  
"Did Hofmann ever tell you what he did at the Reich Chancellery?" Eric asked.  
Maggie looked startled. "At the Chancellery?"

Eric smiled coldly.  
"He didn't tell you he worked at the Chancellery, did he? Yes, he worked in the government building, rubbing shoulders with all of the architects of those atrocities. Hofmann was not a mere little desk criminal, rubber-stamping orders from above. He worked in logistics and he was really good at his job. He moved troops and food and ammunition from one end of the expanding Reich to the other. Oh, and people. He facilitated the movement of thousands of people – undesirables, for the most part. He helped tidy them up and send them on their way to the concentration camps he claimed to know nothing about."  
Maggie shook her head rapidly, frowning at him.  
"That is a terrible thing to say, Eric," she snapped. "That's disgusting."  
"He didn't defect because he was on the wrong side," Eric continued blithely. "He defected because he was on the _losing_ side. So, yes, the wrong side – but not the morally wrong side, just the one that was least likely to ultimately further his interests."

Maggie got down off the bed. Her hands were shaking and her voice was unsteady, too.  
"I have never known Stephen to be _anything_ but kind and considerate," she said. "Of all the vampires I know, he is one of the most human and the most humane. He's worked so hard on the Charter, he's passionate about so many of the things you despise. You know, like the petty regulations to stop vampires doing hateful and barbaric things to us and to each other. He's not some kind of _monster_ , Eric."  
There were some advantages to a blood bond, but sharing this kind of searing emotion was not one of them. Maggie's hurt thumped against his ribs and he felt sorry for her.  
"People can change," she insisted. "He says himself that he recognised the Nazis were wrong. He did a lot of good – "  
"Yes, yes, saved countless lives. In a way that required no personal effort on his part whatsoever – he just handed over a heap of papers and let other, more courageous people do the actual dirty work."

Eric stood in front of her, his head bowed so that his nose almost rested on her hair.  
"Stephen said he only met you once," Maggie said, trying to push him away. "How can you know all of this about him?"  
Eric shrugged. "It was a very impressionable meeting."  
"Don't be fucking cryptic, Eric. I'm getting sick of it."  
"He was part of a small group of vampires that wanted to oust the council in Dublin. They thought the future lay in Berlin and they were recruiting the continent's oldest and strongest vampires. I was the perfect choice: no political affiliations or office, no particular loyalty or indebtedness to Charles. Unfortunately for them, I wasn't interested in joining their merry band of vampire Nazis. When I declined, their leader defanged me as a means of keeping me honour-bound to silence."  
Maggie gaped at him, her gaze automatically went to his fangs. He clicked them out to reassure her.  
"Did Stephen do it?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper.  
Eric smiled wryly.  
"Your precious Mr Hofmann wasn't even in the room when it happened. In actual fact, he was … kind to me afterwards, in a fashion. He arranged to have me taken to a safe house and there was blood waiting for me when I got there. A few nights later Godric turned up to get me, which I presume was thanks to Hofmann's efficient organisational skills as well. That was the last I saw of him. As soon as the war was over and my business in Europe was finished, Godric and I returned to America and there I heard that Hofmann had inserted himself in Charles' inner circle. I was surprised, I must admit, because I thought his involvement in the Berlin council would be tantamount to treason but – " he shrugged "– none of my damned business."

"What happened to the vampire who – " Maggie stopped and pointed at his mouth.  
Eric looked down at her. Her face was grim.  
"It took a long time for my new fangs to grow in. Months, in fact. Godric had to stay by me the entire time because without them I was helpless. I couldn't hunt or break skin to feed, I had to have him by my side to protect me. When my fangs were strong enough to use again, we parted ways for a while. On his return, he gave me back the fangs that had been pulled. They'd been kept as trophies, you see. I don't know how he'd got them back and I don't know who he killed to get them – the war was ending anyway, so he ventured into the chaos that was Berlin and came back with my fangs in a box."

Eric went over to the bureau and rummaged in his keepsakes. He took out an old matchbox, the writing was faded and the sulphur strip on the side had been struck so often, it was nearly threadbare. He handed it to Maggie.

Gingerly, she slid the top open and removed the curved tooth.  
"Oh, God," she said queasily. She tipped the box over. "Where's the other one?"  
Eric leaned forward and pulled the chain around her neck, placing it on her shirt.  
"Around your neck," he said. "Where it always is."  
She made a small _bleurgh_ sound and shoved the box into his hand, bolting for the bathroom. Eric smiled to himself, replacing the fang in the little box and returned it to the drawer.

x-x-x-x

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	30. XXX

Eric stuck his head around the door.  
"You're not throwing up, are you?"  
Drying my hands on the towel beside the washbasin I said, "No, just trying to scrub off the heebie-jeebies."  
He laughed and came inside. "What did you think it was, if not a tooth?" he asked.  
"I thought it was a claw or something."  
"And how is that better?"  
Good question.  
"I don't know," I said, "It just seems slightly less gruesome than having one of your fangs dangling around my throat."

In answer to that, he picked up the offending fang and placed it around my neck. I watched him in the mirror, carefully snapping the tiny latch on the chain shut, then fixing it so his fang rested between my breasts.  
"I like it when you're naked except for this," he said softly. "I like to see you wear it when we make love."  
He didn't look at me when he said it. In fact, he pretended to busy himself with the chain – which was fine by me, because I was struggling to keep my face neutral and composed.  
See, I didn't think we had been _making love_. Certainly, I didn't think of it that way: in my head, we'd been having sex. Shagging. Other more primal – okay: ruder words.  
Love making? Eh, no. Heebie-jeebies again.

"Mmmm," I said, my go-to response for awkward situations.  
Eric continued to look at my shoulders, his hands, the floor, and I fought the desire to talk about the weather or make chit-chat about something equally banal. This had been all very fine and well when I could convince myself that I was just enjoying a very weird and somewhat freaky short-term holiday romance in the most unlikeliest of locations, so the last thing I wanted was this big vampire seeing our bonking as _love-making_. Not when there were so many other things we needed to talk about first.

"Look, Eric," I began. "We need to talk."  
"No conversation that began with 'we need to talk' has ever ended well," he said, finally meeting my eye in the mirror.  
"Listen," I said firmly, "something really strange is going on. Are you planning something? Have you got something up your sleeve? Is there anything I should know?"  
He looked at me evenly.  
"No," he lied.  
" _Eric_ ," I said warningly. "I know when you're lying."  
He sighed.  
"Magdalena," he said in a low voice, "You grew up around vampires, did you not? Well, you know that sometimes, before our humans can get involved, there are things we need to - "  
" _Fix_ ," I finished. "You vampires and your damned fixing."  
I stared him down.  
"Is it illegal?" I asked sternly.  
He tilted his head to the side, considering the question.  
"Do you really need to know?" he asked.  
For fuck's sake.

"Do you mind if we each do our own thing tonight?" Eric asked suddenly in a brisk tone, as though our previous exchange had never happened.  
_Finally!_ , I thought, and answered a little too enthusiastically: "Yes! No, I mean: yes, I don't mind, no."  
My signals were mixed, but Eric understood what I meant.  
"It's just that I have laundry to do and I should really phone my parents and I – "  
"It's okay," he said, amused. "I just wanted to know if you minded being alone in the house, after what happened the last time. The face at the window?" he prompted, seeing the blank look on my face.  
"Oh, that," I said.  
So much had happened since the first night here, I'd almost forgotten about it.  
He peered at me, trying to gauge what was going on in my head.  
"I'll phone you every hour, okay? If for any reason you don't pick up, I'll come back straight away."  
"Fine," I said. "And if it is another vampire, I'll just wave your fang at them and say that I've already been spoken for."  
"It's not Kryptonite," Eric said. "Though I suppose it's better than nothing."  
_Gee,_ I thought sourly, _what a nice way to remind me that I was essentially a sitting duck armed with an old tooth for protection._

\- - -

"Bye, darling!" I carolled as he left. I was standing at the front door, waving a handkerchief at him, in classic housewifey-style. "I'll have your slippers and pipe ready when you return!"  
Eric shook his head in despair. The lights on the car flashed, the doors clicked open.  
"Go inside, you lunatic," he said.

"What are you up to tonight, by the way?" I called.  
He sighed and came back to the door.  
"Top secret vampire political crap. Espionage, conspiracies, plotting, that sort of stuff," he said drily. "Not the kind of thing we shout all over the neighbourhood."  
"Darling," I said, batting my eyelashes, "It's like being married to James Bond."  
I pulled his tie and he lowered his face to mine for a kiss.  
"You sure you won't need the car?" he asked.  
"I've got enough work to do at home," I said. "Don't worry about it."  
He straightened up.  
"We should really organise a car for you," he said thoughtfully. "I'll have one of my day guys look into it for you."  
I was going to tell him that there wasn't much point – I'd be on my way back to New Orleans in a matter of days, but he was already striding over to the car. He got in, put on his seat belt and gave me a nod. I waved my handkerchief enthusiastically and blew him kisses. He rolled his eyes and pulled out of the driveway.  
"Go inside," he mouthed.  
I watched him leave, pretending to weep melodramatically, then went back inside and closed the door.  
No matter how much I suspected that he was up to something tricky, it was still just _so much fun_ to annoy him.

The first thing I did was Skype my parents.  
I'd avoided that duty with a series of vague and non-committal texts, but I couldn't avoid it any longer. I set up my laptop at the kitchen table and dialled through to my parents' computer. I could just imagine my mother sitting in front of the PC in their living room, frantically trying to figure out which button to click to accept my call. She probably had the cat on her lap and her reading glasses somewhere in the bottom of her handbag.  
And that's exactly the way it was: my mother's image filled my laptop, she was talking before I could even focus on what she was saying.

"… and he told me Ilaria was missing! What happened to her? We're worried sick, I tell you. I haven't slept in a week. What's going on? You're not in New Orleans, that much is clear, but Stephen didn't want to tell me where you were. You're not in trouble, are you? You haven't gone and done something stupid now, Maggie, have you?"  
"Ma, I'm fine," I said. "Don't worry about me."  
My father shuffled in, and sat down beside my mother.  
"Howarya, Maggie," he said. He made himself comfortable beside my mother then said in a very grave voice: "We are very concerned about Ilaria."  
_As though I weren't_ , I fumed.  
"How did you lose her?" he demanded.  
_As though she were a dog_ , I fumed even more.  
"I didn't _lose_ her," I hissed.  
"Well, nothing we are hearing about your shenanigans over there is very reassuring at all," my mother said, displeased.  
_Oh, Lord,_ I thought.

I filled them in on everything that had happened since we last spoke.  
As it happens, much had trickled down to them via my uncle James, who'd informed them of Ilaria's disappearance and told them that I was staying with friends somewhere in Louisiana. Luckily for me, the fact that loads of other members of the Empress's entourage had returned to Dublin meant that my being sent away didn't appear as shocking or troublesome as it had really been. Whoever had spoken to James – probably Stephen, bless his diplomatic heart – had omitted to tell him that I had been sent away for being naughty, not superfluous.

"Who are you staying with?" my mother asked curiously. "Stephen said you were visiting a friend of Ilaria's."  
I really, really owed Stephen. My feelings towards him had taken a few unexpected turns this evening, but this had put him straight back into my good books.  
"Yes," I said quickly. "Pamela de Beaufort. They were nestmates. She's a good friend of Ilaria's and _very_ respectable."  
"No doubt," said my father. "So what's this Stephen was saying about you shacking up with her maker?"

I don't know what shocked me more: my father using the term _shacking up_ or the fact that Stephen had ratted me out. Once again, he sank in my estimation.  
I was getting a bit confused.  
"Eric Northman," my father said slowly, pushing the glasses back down his nose so he could read something written on the notepad beside the computer. "Is that what it says, Anna? Northman?"  
She confirmed that it was, in fact, Northman.  
"We've told you often enough that you shouldn't be carrying on with vampires," my mother scolded. "But if you really must do so, then you could've picked yourself someone more suitable. Did you not look him up in the _Book of the Undead_ before you two started getting cosy? What's the whole point of gathering all of this information, if not to know this kind of thing?"  
"Your grandfather is not very pleased," my father said darkly. And then – my heart stopped – he turned from the screen and shouted, "Da! Da!"  
"No!" I whispered, "Is he there? Don't call him! Don't call him!"

Too late.  
My grandfather and my grandmother had probably been on one of their daily visits to my parents – our house was en route to the grocery store and on the way to the park where they walked their dogs – so they came into the living room and peered into the screen to see me. There was some confusion as everyone took their seats ( _Not this chair, Seán, take this one instead. This one has a wonky leg. No, don't be moving around on it, it's a swivel chair. Jesus, Mary and holy Saint Joseph, don't be twirling around on that like a dervish or you'll need to have another hip replaced._ Et cetera) and then, finally settled, my grandparents leaned in to inspect me. 

My father's father is one of the last true vampire killers: he and Tomas Ardelean still know what it is like to hunt and stake a vampire, my grandda has taken down creatures far older and stronger than most people could imagine. And even though he's in his eighties, I have yet to meet a vampire who would willingly take their chances against him. He has a small arsenal of stakes and crosses and a stockpile of silver bullets in the sideboard of his dining room and I'm certain that he has more than one set of fangs rattling around an empty matchbox somewhere.  
He is, in short, quite formidable.  
The only one who can truly control him is my grandmother, who comes from a family of minor hunters, the secondary ranks. In our family, though, she's the boss.

"What's this I hear about you and Eric Northman?" my grandfather shouted into the computer.  
Unlike my father, he knew exactly who Eric Northman was. I'd say his name had only needed to be mentioned once and my grandfather had immediately scurried off to take down one of his leather-bound volumes of the _Book of the Undead_ to confirm what he already knew about this scoundrel.  
"It's okay, grandda," I said. "It's nothing serious, it's just a …"  
I tried to find a word suited to the assembled company. My grandmother helped me out: "A fling!" she offered.  
"A fling," I agreed weakly.  
"What about Stephen?" asked my mother. "Well, I like Stephen."  
"Stephen's a grand chap," my father pronounced. "You could do worse than Stephen. What's wrong with him?"

My grandmother murmured her agreement, but my grandfather stopped that line of questioning with a shout: "Stephen is a bollocks!"  
"Seán!" my grandmother snapped. " _Language!_ "  
"I don't know who's worse," my grandfather continued, ignoring her, "Northman or Hofmann. Honestly, Magdalena, what are you at? Tomas Ardelean told me that you and Northman have had a blood exchange. I'm hearing rumours over here that you're his consort – and that's not even the worst of it!"  
My 83-year-old grandfather could just about use his original Nokia 3310, doesn't understand how the internet works, considers telegrams to be instant messaging … yet he manages to be perfectly informed every time a pin drops in vampire circles, even if those circles are turning on the other side of the Atlantic ocean. I had to admit that I was impressed.  
"It's true," I said. "I like him. He's a nice guy, we're having a lot of fun."  
"Are you his _consort_?" said my mother, cutting to the chase. "Are you not still married, Maggie? Does your husband know about this?"  
"Ex-husband," I corrected. "Ma, that's just what they call it. It doesn't mean anything, it's just significantly less cringy than being called his girlfriend. Besides, he's the sheriff, so that makes me, you know, his official companion."

"Ah, for the love of God!" my grandfather said, red-faced. "This is worse than I thought. If you'd been in cahoots with him, I'd have just told you to get your backside home and stop causing trouble. But you don't even know what he's up to, do you?"  
My parents and grandmother had turned to look at my grandfather, so now, perturbed, they all turned to look at me.  
"No?" I said, uncertainly.  
"For the love of God and all things holy," my grandfather said in exasperation. "Well, why don't you tell him that your grandfather wants to know what he's got planned. And you can tell him from me that you're not going to be involved in it. I want you back home here before that blasted summit, Maggie. And you can tell Moya Kennedy I said that. No two ways about it."  
He nodded his head decisively.  
"What has he got planned?" I asked, feeling a shot of dread go straight to my heart.  
I hadn't known Eric that long, but this was confirming what I suspected: I doubted he was planning, say, a holiday or a surprise party.  
"Ask him," my grandfather said and set his mouth in a straight line. "Far be it for me to let you know what your vampire husband is up to."

Eh, okay. Luckily for me, my phone started to ring and, speak of the devil, it was Eric.  
"That's him," I said. "I have to take this call."  
"Is that Northman?" my grandfather said. "Put him on the internet, I want to have a word with him."  
"She can't put him on the internet," my mother said. "He needs to have the Skype."  
She looked at me onscreen with a smug _tsk-tsk_ expression: newbs!  
"Isn't the Skype the internet?" my grandmother wanted to know.  
Right, fine. Enough was enough. I didn't think I could cope with listening to my mother explaining the concept of the internet to my grandparents.  
Correction: explaining _her_ concept of the internet.  
I said a hasty goodbye and answered my phone before it went to voicemail.

"You okay, Magdalena?" Eric asked.  
"Yes. I was just having my head wrecked by my parents and grandparents," I said. "They all say hello, by the way."  
Actually, they didn't. They'd said things like, _get away from that man as fast as possible and why aren't you dating that nice Stephen Hofmann?_ – but I euphemised.

There was a silence on the other end as Eric tried to process what I'd said and figure out what I'd really meant.  
"I'll tell you later," I said wearily. "It's better that you just don't ask."  
I could hear noise in the background, people's voices, scuffling, cars.  
"Where are you?" I asked curiously.  
"I'm visiting my constituents," he answered.  
"Again? You're a really dedicated sheriff."  
He laughed a short, hoarse laugh. "You have no idea."  
See, that was the truth: I really did have no idea.

"I'll tell you later," he said. "But it might be close to dawn before I get back – so don't feel you have to wait up for me."  
I promised I wouldn't.  
He hung up and I went back to my emails, dealing with all of the unpleasant stuff I'd done my best to ignore: emails from my now ex-husband about the sale of our house, an appointment with our solicitor. Emails from Uncle James about a couple of the vampires we'd met in Dallas. Cold, curt mails from Stephen including the itinerary for my return and forwarded emails from the offices of Queen Catherine with the schedule of events for the summit. I couldn't even bring myself to open the latter; I saved the PDFs to my laptop and swore I'd open them the following day, when I felt more mentally able.  
After all, dealing with my grandfather was enough for one night without adding Queen Catherine to the mix as well.

And every hour, on the hour, Eric rang - he simply asked if I was okay and hung up again.

At about 4 a.m. I could stay awake no longer and I went to bed.  
Eric slipped in beside me some time later, probably very close to dawn as he didn't have time to shower. I felt the bed depress, then he moved close to stroke my face before rolling on to his back and shutting down.  
Placing my forehead against his shoulder, I smelled cigarette smoke and alcohol from him and something else as well, something familiar but foreign. Then I remembered what it was: werewolf.  
I breathed deep and rubbed my nose against his skin. We would need to have a couple of very interesting conversations, I thought, before I closed my eyes and tried to sleep.


	31. XXXI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading along, for leaving comments and kudos.  
> I'm glad you're following the story.

With Eric still asleep upstairs, I set myself up at his kitchen table: laptop, notepad, phone and tea. It wasn't much, as offices go, but suited my purposes perfectly well. 

I scrolled down through my mobile and found that I did, indeed, have Hans-Peter's German mobile number. I'd vaguely remembered him giving it to me when we were at our Vampire Training Course in Dublin – luckily I hadn't thought to delete it. I checked the time in Germany and sent him a text. It was late afternoon in Louisiana and morning in Germany – and, sure enough, within twenty minutes he replied: a short text with three spelling mistakes and eleven exclamation marks. I was pretty certain it had taken him all of those twenty minutes to type it.

I called him and could hear his genuine delight when he answered.  
"So nice!" he said, "I am so very happy to hear you! So wonderful! I am worried since you leaved with that very big vampire."  
Werry bick wampire, I repeated in my head and grinned. I loved his accent.  
"No, I'm fine," I said. "All's well here. The very big vampire is fine, actually – it's Ilaria I'm phoning about."  
"She is not found yet?" Hans-Peter asked fearfully. "It is so crazy to think we see her the very last time!"

"Can I ask you about that night?" I said. "Stephen said she left a little early. Did she say why?"  
"No, not really. She just wanted to go back to the hotel to make some calls or something. And Stephen and I were talking about German history, so I think she was a little bit bored. So she sayed goodbye and leaved the restaurant. That was it."  
"Did you see her pass the window outside as she left?"  
He hesitated.  
"I don't think so. I cannot remember to have looked out the window at this time. But you know, a few minutes later Stephen and I decided to leave too. We think we can catch up with her and get together a taxi but she was gone. We did not think it was a strange thing, we thought she was just on her way back to the hotel."

I asked the question I really didn't want to: "Was Stephen with you the entire time?"  
"Yes, all the time," Hans-Peter said and his voice sounded confident.  
"He didn't leave you to go downstairs to freshen up?"  
"Downstairs to freshen up? I don't understand."  
"There's a vampire room downstairs. Like a restroom for vampires, didn't you see it?"  
"No, I don't think so," he said.  
"You didn't see it when you went to the restroom?"  
"I did not go to the restroom, I think."

Wait, now: Hans-Peter was a die-hard beer drinker and there was no way he hadn't used the facilities that night.  
"You didn't use the restroom? Not once?" I asked incredulously.  
"Maggie," Hans-Peter said in a gently chiding tone, "I think it is not very nice to talk of toilet all the time."  
He was right but something was wrong. I couldn't put my finger on it.

We made some small-talk for a couple of minutes before we hung up.  
I drummed my fingers on Eric's kitchen table, then picked my phone up again and dialled Sookie Stackhouse. The phone rang a long time and I was just about to hang up when a child answered:  
"Herroh?"  
"Hello?" I said. "Can I speak to … eh… your mummy, please?"  
"Mummy?" said the child and pealed with laughter.  
"Eh … Mom? Mommy? Momma? – "

"Hello?" Sookie said. "I told you before, Adele, do not answer my phone. Hello?"  
"Hi, Sookie," I said. "It's me, Maggie. Magdalena Kennick."  
"Oh, hi, Maggie," she said.  
Her tone was, as always slightly cautious, wary.  
"Just a quick question," I asked. "Is it possible to tell over the phone if someone has been glamoured? I mean, can you – you know – read their thoughts over the phone line?"  
"Nope," she answered promptly.  
"How about on Skype or Facetime?"  
"No," she said again. "Sorry. It really has to do with being near the person. Like, physically near. If I can touch them then it's even better."

I sighed.  
"Thanks, Sookie," I said. "I kind of thought so, but I wanted to check."  
"If you can get the person to come to Shreveport, I can talk to them for you," she said helpfully. "Just not this weekend because I'm helping with the church nativity play and bake sale. But during the week should be okay."  
"The person in question is in Germany," I said glumly. "But thanks for the offer. Have fun at the nativity play."  
"By the way," she said quickly, "did you put up his Christmas tree yet?"  
"Not yet," I said. "I've been busy. But I might do it this weekend."  
"Let me know how that goes," she laughed.  
I promised I would. I hung up, put the phone down and resumed my drumming.

Eric cleared his throat.  
"For crying out loud!" I cried out loud.  
"Don't you feel my presence?" he asked.  
"You're in the house. I feel your bloody presence all the time," I complained. "Would you mind making your presence known and not sneaking up on me?"  
"Why?" he said coldly. "If I did, I wouldn't hear things like chummy little conversations between you and Sookie Stackhouse."  
"Yeah, and?" I snapped. "What of it?"

I brushed past him and went into the living room, where I'd lit the fire earlier. I picked up the poker and pushed the logs, trying to play it cool.  
"And how have you become acquainted with Sookie Stackhouse, may I ask?" he asked with exaggerated politeness, trailing behind me.  
"You may. Pam gave me her number. We asked her to go with me to New Orleans to make some enquiries about Ilaria. She's a nice woman, we had a pleasant time, the unpleasant task notwithstanding, and that's all there is to it."  
"And were you not going to tell me?" he said, planting himself directly in front of me.  
His face was hard and his gaze unblinking. I needed not a single drop of his blood to know he was peeved.

"Because, Eric, you are used to people doing what you want. You won't broach argument or disagreement – and the downside of your little totalitarian dictatorship is that when people need to do something they know you'll disagree with, they do it in secret so they don't have to come up against the immoveable object that is Eric Northman."  
I slapped a hand against the flat of his chest to demonstrate my point.  
"But so you know what? I've come to the conclusion that I'll do it anyway if I think it has to be done. So from now on, I'll tell you anything that needs telling and you'll just have to deal. Okay?"  
He stared at me but I stared back, defiant, and continued: "That includes the fact that I'm going to buy you a Christmas tree because this room looks like Ebenezer Scrooge lives in it. There. Happy now?"

I stood back and glared at him. His mouth twitched – then he smiled.  
"We rub along well together, Magdalena," he said.  
I shook my head in disbelief. He always managed to say what I least expected.  
"Yeah," I replied, dismounting my high horse. "I suppose we do."

His smile widened into a grin. "And what did you think of Sookie?" he asked nonchalantly.  
"She's part Sidh, isn't she?" I asked and he nodded.  
That explained the attraction. Sookie Stackhouse could've been a wart-ridden hag and she'd still have a pack of vampires trailing behind her.  
But it wasn't just that.  
"She's … spunky," I said. "I can see why you two got along. She's nice."

Eric stepped close and put his arms around my waist, pulling my face to his chest. Every time, every single time, I started when I smelled the cold of his skin, the faint scent of sea-salt and icy wind, the sweetness of the spiced apples.  
"So you're not jealous, then?" Eric asked and I instinctively knew that some part of him hoped that I was.  
"Yeah, you wish," I said, cutting that dream short.  
He laughed and I heard it echo in his ribcage, pressed up against my ear.  
"So you're not worried ... ?" he asked teasingly.  
"Eric – " I paused a second and thought about what I was going to say. "Eric, you do realize that I have to leave for the summit in a few days, don't you? And after that, I'm going home to Dublin, maybe on to London from there. What you do with Sookie Stackhouse after that is none of my business."  
My heart sank a bit as I spoke: it wasn't something I liked to think about and saying it made it feel even worse.

Eric was still.  
In a living human I would've heard the steady thump-thump of his heart. All I could hear was the tick-tick-tick of his mantel clock.  
"What will you do in Dublin? Or London?" he asked in a neutral tone.  
I pulled away so I could look at him. "Finalise my divorce. Find a job. Settle down. Rebuild my life, my normal life."  
"Your normal life," he said in that same monotone.  
He moved over to the couch and sat down. I knew he was processing what had just happened between us.  
I turned my attention back to the fire, slightly annoyed: he knew when I was leaving and it felt a bit like he was trying to guilt me into doing something.

I tried to broach the subject again.  
"Eric, we really need to talk."  
"Wait," he said. "First I need to know why you rang Sookie this evening."  
"She can tell if someone's been glamoured," I said, "and I need to know if someone glamoured Hans-Peter and, if so, who it was. Wait – you can't tell, can you?"  
"No," Eric said. "But it's easy to know, you don't need a telepath for that. Glamouring leaves holes. If you find the hole, you know the person's been glamoured."  
"Like … if some kind of detail is missing?"  
"Exactly. The glamouring vampire will try to fill the hole left by telling them what they should remember, but they will often leave something out."  
"So if a vampire wanted someone to forget they'd been somewhere, they'd just tell them that they'd never been there, perhaps forgetting that that their not having been there might be implausible."

Eric raised an eyebrow.  
"Again, and this time making more sense, please."  
"Okay. Say you wanted me to forget that I'd gone to the bathroom. You'd just glamour me and tell me to forget it, right? Well, what if you forgot that I would've had to have gone to the loo, because I'm human and I'd drunk a lot of beer?"  
He ran his fingers through his hair.  
"Aside from the fact that there's too much grammar in that question, I really did not expect an example with human waste. But the short answer is yes. A vampire in a hurry would do something like that. An older and more experienced vampire – " and he indicated himself, "would not make such a stupid mistake."  
I sighed, a deep sigh that came from the pit of my stomach.  
Eric looked at me thoughtfully.  
"I think you need a drink," he said. "Come on. Get dressed and we'll go out."

x x x  
We drove into Shreveport and Eric parked his car downtown. I got out and looked around.  
"Where are we going now?" I asked.  
"Where would you like to go?" he replied.  
"Can we just take a walk?" I said. 

It was a clear night, though chilly, and the street was relatively busy, with a lot of people heading in and out of bars or restaurants.  
In answer, he tucked my hand into his elbow and we started to stroll down the street.  
"So why were you asking about glamouring earlier on?" he said.  
I grasped his arm a little more firmly.  
"Someone glamoured Hans-Peter." I couldn't bring myself to say more.  
"Stephen?"  
I shrugged.  
"I suppose so," I said. "The only thing Hans-Peter can remember with any certainty is that Stephen did not leave his side all night, even though that's patently impossible."  
"He glamoured this Hans-Peter because …?"  
"I don't know, Eric. I guess he did it to hide something."  
It hurt me to admit it, but then, I was discovering more and more about Stephen that was hurtful.  
"So he did something to Ilaria or he knows who did something to her," Eric summarized.  
I nodded dumbly. I couldn't even broach the topic, it just hurt too much.

He was kind enough not to poke the topic and gracious enough to steer the conversation away to something else. I squeezed his arm again, suddenly glad of his tact.

Eric stopped and pointed out a busy bistro bar across the street. He said that was becoming more popular with humans and vampires so, in the interests of checking out Fangtasia's competition, we went inside and found seats by the window. There weren't many vampires in the place but one or two recognized Eric and acknowledged his presence with a discreet nod. However, the most flamboyant vampire in the place didn't even notice us: he was surrounded by a rapt audience at the bar. He was an incredibly handsome man, with hair as dark and shiny as a chestnut and dark, hooded eyes to match. His fangs were extended and I saw him gently take a woman's hand and scrape them across it. She squealed and wriggled, but didn't pull her hand away; whereupon he laughed and licked her fingertip with a darting tongue. His skin was a dull tan colour, but in life he had probably had a healthy glow.  
In his undeath he still maintained a certain vitality that most vampires lost when their hearts stopped beating: he was magnetic. Sexy.

Eric watched him, not moving a muscle.  
The vampire behind the bar was serving drinks with aplomb, handing them over with kisses and lingering, soulful glances. The recipients – male and female – seemed glad to get anything he was offering.  
"This one has been causing problems," Eric said out of the corner of his mouth. "He is indiscreet and indiscriminate. He takes any human's woman who pleases him and seems to have no problem making himself pleasing to them. Other vampires are complaining that he's caused too many fights. It's only a matter of time before he finds himself embroiled in some kind of more serious trouble."  
"Eric!" I said in exasperation. "You never rest, do you? Can we just go out and have a drink without you sheriffing?"  
Eric grinned in reply, then cocked a finger at the vampire in the bar.  
It only took a second or two for the barman to notice us. He seemed to get a fright when he saw Eric: he said something to the women waiting at the bar, then walked slowly over to our table.

" _Jefe_ ," he said to Eric and saluted him.  
"Alfonso," Eric said smoothly, "there have been reports of some bad behaviour on your part. And now that I'm here, I'm inclined to believe them. What you do in your free time is your own business, but in public it would behove you to remember that the better part of valour is discretion."  
" _Jefe_?" said poor Alfonso, confused – and I didn't blame him: Eric was taking pleasure in being a snooty arse.  
"Don't shit where you eat, Alfonso," I translated. "What the sheriff is saying is that you're causing problems for the entire vampire community by being so ... charming with your customers. I know it's hard when one is as handsome as you are, but do you think you could tone it down a bit at work? Otherwise some thug is going to smash your face in and that's going to lead to all kinds of trouble."  
"Ah, okay." Alfonso said, his face falling. He looked like a child that had been caught doing something naughty. "Is understood, _Jefe_. Thank you, Sheriff. _Muchas gracias_ , Mrs Sheriff," he said, turning to me and swooping up my hand. 

Before I could stop him, his icy lips brushed my skin. When he straightened up, he gave Eric a humble little bow and did the same for me. Except when he pulled back after his bow, he give me a tiny wink on the side that Eric could not see. I suppressed a grin. He was very naughty, but extraordinarily charming. I had no doubt that wherever Alfonso went, trouble was inevitable.

He returned to the bar and, with some melodrama, sent his flock of fans away and set about actually serving drinks.  
Without ordering anything, a True Blood and a red wine appeared at our table. Eric didn't even remark on it, in fact, he barely paused the conversation to acknowledge the drinks' arrival.  
I sighed.   
My companion was irrepressibly imperious – born of centuries of being top of the social ladder - but I didn't have to be. I smiled and thanked the waitress, who nodded and left us as fast as her legs would carry her. The gesture didn't go unnoticed. Eric waited till the waitress had left us, then reached out and pulled over my hand.

"I have a proposal for you," he said.  
"Oh no," I groaned. "I'm not going to like this, am I?"  
"Give me a chance. Just listen and think about it, okay?"  
"Okay," I agreed, with mounting foreboding.  
"Why don't you stay on here in Louisiana? I need a proper consort – you saw tonight that this is the case. You work well at my side, we make a good team."  
"Eric – " I began.

But he cut me off: "You promised to listen. You need a job; I'll pay you well. I'll pay you very well. You'll actually get an allowance, not a salary, because for all intents and purposes we will be married. In fact, when your divorce goes through, we should register our civil partnership and make it official for the humans here. Before then, though, I would wish to have a ceremony of symbiosis – we can have it in Dublin, if that would be preferable for your family."  
"Stop, stop," I muttered, "I can't take all the romance."  
"What do you mean?" he asked.  
"Basically, you'd like an arranged marriage, right?"  
He shrugged. "Why not?"

Bless his innocence, I thought. "It's not a matter of why not, more a matter of _why_? Why should I?"  
"Don't you like me?" he asked and astonishment, then a flicker of – what was it? – disappointment flickered across his face, before his usually smooth expression returned.  
_Oh God_ , I thought, _why do I always manage to get embroiled in this kind of thing?_  
"I do like you," I said and squeezed his hand. "But – "  
"And I like you. Very much," he said quickly, interrupting me. "I would be loyal to you, faithful. We don't have to be madly in love now, but we could grow to love each other, don't you think?"

I was physically trying to stop myself squirming.  
Did I like Eric? Yes, of course I did. I loved his company, his wry humour. He was droll, he was smart, he was good in the sack.  
_Great_ in the sack. Credit where it's due, after all.  
I'd worked hard to not think about having to leave for Dublin and leave him behind; in unguarded moments I'd caught myself wondering if I would see him again after that – or if I could see him again after that. But I'd never considered _staying_. I never allowed myself to regard him as anything except a kind of strange deviation from my normal life, a short-term fling with no long-term consequences.

"Think about it," he said decisively. "Being my consort would afford you more opportunities than any job in the back office of a museum ever could."  
In a way, he was right. My last job involved very little glamour and very few fancy frocks. But – Fangtasia? _Shreveport?_

I cleared my throat and said, "Don't get me wrong – Shreveport has been very, eh, _interesting_ but I'm not entirely sure there's much call for an Irish historian or archivist with a focus on 11th-century Europe in this part of Louisiana. Or do you expect me to become a full-time stay-at-home housewife? In which case, I'm just going to say a straight-up no."  
"And what if we moved somewhere more pleasing to you? New Orleans or Baton Rouge?"  
That's exactly what Pam had said.  
"What are you up to, Eric?" I asked suspiciously.

He released my hand and leaned back in his chair.  
"Nothing," he said insouciantly. "I'm just thinking that my time in Shreveport might be coming to an end. And if you're going to become my companion, I think we should decide where we will live together. But you think it over," he said quickly as my mouth opened to reply. "All I ask is that you think about it and we can talk it over tomorrow night again. Okay?"  
I agreed reluctantly.  
One of his long fingers stroked the delicate skin on the inside of my wrist and I felt a quiver run through me. When I looked at him, his fangs extended and something shot from my solar plexus to somewhere deep inside me.  
"This is unfair," I whispered. "You're not to try to influence my decision with sex."  
He grinned.  
"Maybe," he said.  
Yes, indeed: a sneaky bastard.

Eric paid, we went back to the car and he drove us home. 

He opened the front door, already pulling at the buttons of my coat, I had a hand on his belt and was trying to wrangle it open and kiss him back at the same time. We were too involved with each other to notice anything behind us, but Eric noticed it first. He pulled away from me, hissing, his fangs extended to their full, long length.

"What's wrong?" I asked and in reply, the hall was flooded with light.  
"Shit!" I shrieked.  
Flanking the stairway were six men, dressed in black, each holding some kind of large rifle.  
Eric pulled me behind him and tried to manoeuvre me backwards out the door. He didn't get beyond a few steps: in a blur, someone stepped in behind us and blocked the way.  
Eric turned, snarling, and we faced a smiling vampire, dressed in the same black as the others.  
"Do not move, Mr Northman," he said in a soft voice. "They are all armed with silver bullets and they could easily take both you and your consort down in a matter of seconds."  
He looked familiar to me: he had been turned in middle age, his hair was thinning and he had a smattering of acne scars across his cheeks. I'd seen him before – but where?  
"Who are you?" Eric demanded.  
"I'm Philip Bowden," he said "adjutant to – "  
"- the king of Texas," I finished.  
He was the king's lackey, his right-hand man. 'Adjutant' just made it sound nicer than 'general brownnoser'.  
"That's right, Miss Kennick. Delighted to meet you again."  
"The pleasure is all mine," I sneered.  
Not.

"Why are you here?" Eric said in a low tone. "What's going on?"  
Bowden produced a piece of paper from his inside pocket and unfolded it.  
"In the name of David, King of Texas, I hereby accuse you both of the crime of treason, of plotting to overthrow your liege lady in the state of Texas and of soliciting the support of vampires in Louisiana and in the jurisdiction of David, King of Texas. You will come with me to Austin, where you will be answerable for your crimes."  
"Treason?" I said. It was the only word I'd heard in his spiel. "Are you serious? Is he serious?" I asked, turning to Eric.  
"She knows nothing," he said in the same low tone. "Leave her out of it."  
"Is this true?" Bowden asked me.  
"Is what true? What do I not know? What's going on?"  
"Did you know that Mr Northman has been plotting to take over the throne of Louisiana and replace Queen Catherine before the summit begins?"

My jaw dropped. I stared at the Texan vampire, dumbfounded.  
"Don't be ridiculous," I said.  
Bowden clicked his tongue. "Barry?" he called.  
One of the men in black stepped forward and said, "It's true, sir, she knows nothing."  
"Fucking telepath," Eric muttered.

"Very well," Bowden said after a moment of thought. "Take him, leave her here. She can answer to her own empress."  
Before either Eric or I could react, a couple of the guardsmen stepped forward. They pushed me aside and looped silver chains around his neck and hands. The hiss and smell of burning flesh was disgusting. They started to half-pull, half-drag Eric out the door.  
I stood rooted to the spot. He was on the front step before my legs could move – I pushed my way past the men and tried to elbow them aside.  
"I want to speak to him!" I cried frantically. "Leave him alone!"  
"Give her a minute," Bowden said wearily, as though I'd asked for a kidney.  
I bent my head to Eric's.  
"Is it true?" I asked, my stomach turning at the sight of the livid wounds on his neck.  
"Call Pam," he whispered. "Call your empress, call your grandfather. Call in every favour you've ever been owed."  
"Enough," Bowden said and took the chain from one of the guards. 

He yanked Eric up. As he did so, a van pulled up in front of the driveway and they briskly marched him off. They all got inside, pulling Eric behind them like an errant dog. The side door slid shut with a resounding thud and they drove off, leaving me in the freezing driveway, illuminated by the light of the open front door.

Seconds later they were gone: the neighbourhood was still and peaceful, shrouded in its witching hour darkness. No one had apparently seen the drama that just occurred. I rubbed my eyes in disbelief, not wanting to believe I'd just experienced it, either.  
Then, on shaky legs, I went inside to call Pam - the first of many calls I would make before the sun broke the darkness at dawn.


	32. XXII

I scrambled for my phone, kicking the door shut with my heel. I felt sick, my body was wracked with tremors, so I gripped the hall table till they passed, and then I rang Pam.

She picked up on the second ring.  
“I’m on my way!” she cried and hung up.  
I wondered briefly how she knew, then remembered that a maker could summon his offspring telepathically – presumably Eric had called her. That was a good sign: he was still alive. 

I scrolled through my phone, punched a few buttons and then shoved the door of Eric’s office open. I sat down at his desk, no longer caring about the niceties of his privacy, yanking drawers open and rifling through his papers. My phone rang, once, twice, three times. I listened to the steady ring, praying for someone to pick up.

“Hello?” said my grandmother.  
“I need to talk to Grandda,” I said. “Please, Gran, please get him now!”  
“It’s happened, hasn’t it?” she said in an odd voice.  
“Yes, it has,” I said, even though I wasn’t entirely sure what _it_ was.  
I heard Pamela at the door, scrabbling to get her key in the lock.  
“In here!” I called.  
“Where is he?” she shrieked. “What's happened?”

I put my hand up to silence her as my grandfather came on the line.  
“Well?” was his greeting.  
“Tell me what you know about Eric Northman,” I demanded. “Tell me what you heard.”  
“What’s going on?”  
“A bunch of vampires from Texas crossed the border and arrested him on behalf of their king. They said he’d been conspiring in their territory to unseat the Louisiana Queen. They’ve accused him of treason and taken him away with them – to … I don’t know. Dallas?”

Pam wailed, an almost animalistic cry that made the hair on my neck stand on end. 

“To Austin,” my grandfather corrected. “The king’s seat is in Austin.”  
Then he was silent.  
Pam shot behind me, trying to press her ear to the phone.  
I pushed her back and pressed the button to put Grandda on speaker-phone. But he continued to say nothing.  
“Grandda?” I prompted. “What did you hear?”

He sighed.  
“I have a friend in New York, an old vampire friend called Mr Sutton. He’s a lawyer, has been for centuries. If anyone needs any advice about anything, he’s the one to give it. He contacted me to tell me that he’d been paid a visit by a young lady with a Southern accent, who wanted to know what the legal implications would be if a Queen was dethroned by one of her subjects.”  
“Did she name any names?”  
“Not that Mr Sutton cared to mention – client confidentiality and all of that.”  
“What made you think that vampire was Eric, if no names were mentioned?” I said.

My grandfather paused again.  
“Because up until now the only way a vampire could dethrone his liege lord was to kill him, and even then there was no guarantee that the other subjects would accept him as their leader. Under Moya’s new charter, American vampires will be able to depose their leaders if they can prove sworn fealty from the majority of the other sheriffs in their state and get the backing of three other monarchs. According to the little Southern belle, this rogue vampire has New York, California and the Islands.”  
The Islands. The Islands of the Caribbean, that is.  
And I knew Eric had the support of the King of the Islands.

I glared at Pam, but she wouldn’t meet my eye.  
“So apparently this vampire had his progeny check if he could use the summit to make a move on his Queen and to what extent this takeover would be legal. And if Moya’s charter is passed, even in the butchered version favoured by Queen Catherine, he most certainly will be able to make a move to dethrone her.”

So the charter – or whatever was left of the original proposals brought to the summit by our Empress and her legal team – would be passed and immediately tested with a hostile takeover.  
Plucky.

“But, still,” I insisted, “why did you assume it was Northman?”  
My grandfather’s voice grew cold.  
“Because, Magdalena, this vampire’s trump card, the ace up his sleeve, was not just the fact that he’d been allying himself with American vampires left, right and centre, but that he’d managed to snare himself a nice little consort, one with connections to the right people in the right places and the kind of name that every vampire of a certain age knows.”  
My throat went dry.  
“Me?” I croaked.  
“You,” he confirmed. “You were to be the new Queen of Louisiana.”

I excused myself, warning my grandfather not to hang up, and pressed the mute button on the phone.  
“Did you know about this?” I demanded of Pam.  
“I … I … he…,” she said and tears trickled down her face. “I told him not to, but he said he was being careful. He said no one knew, no one could prove anything. For all intents and purposes, he was simply presenting his new consort to his people, to his friends.”  
“Like the King of the Islands?” I sneered. “You think no one noticed one of the world’s most powerful vampires sitting on stage in your grotty little bar, with his mother? And one of Queen Catherine’s entourage, to boot?”  
“They’ve been some of Eric’s strongest supporters and they count among his oldest friends,” Pamela murmured, a tad too quickly for my liking.  
“I’d believe you,” I muttered, “but millions wouldn’t.”

I pressed the mute button again.  
“Are you still there?” I said.  
“What are you going to do now, Maggie?” my grandfather said. “Come home and leave that bunch of bloodsuckers to sort out their own mess.”  
“No,” I said. Then, more resolutely, “No, I won’t.”  
“Maggie – ”  
“No,” I snapped. “I’m going to get him back.”  
“You are _not_ ,” my grandfather roared, causing Pamela to jump. “I forbid you! I forbid you to get involved in this! By the old rule of law, Northman has committed treason, he’ll meet the True Death and if you know what’s good for you, you get out of there before someone decides it would be best if your car drove off a bridge or into oncoming traffic.”  
“I’m going to get him,” I hissed. “And I’m going to do it whether I get your support or not. But we both know my chances of getting back to Dublin alive are a lot greater if you bloody well _help_ me.”  
“Madgalena – ” my grandfather said in a threatening tone.  
“This is happening,” I said. “The only way you can stop is to get on a plane and fly over here. Feel free to do it, Grandda, but in the twelve hours it’ll take you to get here, I’ll already be in the middle of something very bad. So what’s it going to be?”

My grandfather said some very rude words and was immediately scolded by my grandmother, obviously hovering in the background.  
“Fine,” he said, resigned. “Fine. Listen carefully then, because what I’m about to tell you, I’ll only tell you once.”  
I listened.


	33. XXIII

I hung up on my grandfather and twirled around in Eric’s big chair to face Pamela, who was pacing up and down in front of his desk, her face in her hands. 

It was funny: when my husband left me, and left me in an entirely mundane way, his wheelie suitcase rattling over the cobble-locked driveway on the way to the waiting taxi, I fell to pieces. I wailed for days; I fell onto my sofa and slept there for two nights because I didn’t have the energy, physical or mental, to crawl up the stairs. 

Now I had just witnessed a kind of violence I was entirely unfamiliar with: I’d seen the man I’d woken up beside that evening bundled off in a van, bleeding from deep wounds around his neck and arms, and yet I wasn’t sobbing or howling.  
Instead, I was filled with a kind of ice-cold intent, a sense of focus, an iron purpose.  
I didn’t want to cry, I wanted to get on the next plane to wherever the King of Texas resided and stick a wooden stake through his eye.

I continued to rifle through Eric’s desk while Pam stood by, frowning.  
“What are you doing?” she said as I rattled a locked drawer.  
“I need his address book, his diary,” I said. “I need numbers of people, of other vampires who’ve pledged him their support. I know he has a mobile phone, but he strikes me as the type of guy who would write stuff down. Are you any good at picking locks?”

Pamela stared at me. Her mascara had run, creating black rings around her eyes.  
“Yes, I am,” she answered surprisingly. “I was a whore in my human life; every good whore can pick a lock.”  
Who was I to argue? 

She dropped to her knees in front of the drawer and pulled a bobby pin out of her elaborate hair-do. She twisted it back and forth, then inserted it into the lock. We both waited with baited breath as she wriggled the pin around.  
Nothing happened.  
She wriggled a little more, frowning in concentration.  
“There!” she said triumphantly, pulling the drawer open.

It was full of money.  
Wads of it, tightly wound into rolls and kept in place with rubber bands. I had no idea how much was in it: I picked up one and looked at it more carefully. There were hundred dollar bills – a hundred of them, at a conservative guess. Which was … I did the mental math: $10,000. And the drawer was jammed full of them.  
“Holy shit,” I said, dumping them on the desk. “Holy cow. Holy macaroni.”

Pamela was unimpressed by the cash.  
“He has an address book, an old book. It’s leather bound. He’s had it for decades, for as long as I’ve known him.”  
The drawer was empty, except for a sheaf of handwritten documents in Latin and another language I couldn’t read. They looked very old, like contracts, so I shoved them back in.

I felt around inside, trying to find a false compartment. I knew how the Northman mind worked – and I was right. My fingers found a knot in the wood and when I pushed it, the bottom of the drawer wobbled ever so slightly. I pulled the drawer out as far as I could and removed the wood on the bottom. Underneath it was the leather-bound book and a collection of gold rings. I touched one with my fingertip, saw a name engraved on the inside: Amélie.  
They were wedding rings.  
I counted them - fourteen. Fourteen wedding rings, in various shades of gold but all the same size, big enough to fit a very large vampire finger. I dropped the false bottom back into place and shoved it closed before Pamela could see what I’d found.

“I’ve got it,” I said, holding it up.  
She nodded and I started flicking through the pages.  
The first half of the book was written in ink, the latter half was written in ballpoint pen: pages of names, short notes, telephone numbers and – in the last few pages – email addresses. I recognized Eric’s writing, a scrawling mix of lowercase and uppercase letters, showing evidence of several centuries’ worth of handwriting styles.

“I’m going to start by phoning Pierre Sauvant, the King of the Islands,” I said. “While I’m doing that, I want you to find out where the King of Texas lives or resides or whatever the fuck that undead bastard does, and I want you to figure out a way to get us there as soon as possible. If we have to travel by day, then you’d better make sure your coffin is light-tight. Is that clear? Then you start phoning every other sheriff that Eric has been in contact with, anyone he mentioned that swore him fealty, okay? Tell them what has happened and tell them they’d better be prepared to show their colours or I, Maggie Kennick, will personally hunt them down and make a necklace of their fangs.”

Pam nodded.  
“Very well,” she said and she managed a wobbly smile.  
She seemed relieved that I was taking charge and I barely stopped to think how odd it was that our roles had been reversed. Ever since I’d met her, Pam had taken particular delight in bossing me around.  
“One more thing,” I said, “were you the one who went to see the vampire lawyer, Sutton, in New York?”  
Pam shook her head. “It wasn’t me,” she said. “It must have been – ”

She was interrupted by a frenzied banging on the door, a cacophony of doorbell-ringing.  
“It must have been her,” she said, nodding at the hall. “His other progeny. The southern belle.”  
I opened the front door but I didn’t even get a chance to see who it was, so fast did the vampire move.  
She whirled by me, a mass of black hair and red nails.  
“Where is he?” she hissed, fangs extended. “Where is my maker? He’s calling me, I can feel it.”  
“Magdalena, Willa,” Pam said, “Willa, Magdalena.”

We eyed each other.  
“Who are you?” she demanded.  
“Who are _you_?” I replied.  
“Willa is Eric’s progeny,” Pam said. “Willa, this is Eric’s … wife. Your step-mommy, in a manner of speaking.”  
I knew she took great pleasure in saying that, even in her state of distress, it made her mouth twist up into an impish smile. 

I rolled my eyes, pushing past my vampire stepchildren, back into Eric’s office where I flipped his book open, trying to read his dreadful handwriting to see who I could phone next. From the hall I heard the sound of Pam filling Willa in on what had happened, heard her start to cry when Pam said he’d been arrested for treason. Meantime, I found Pierre Sauvant’s number and dialed it, not knowing whether I was calling his mobile number or his private number at his residence in the Caribbean. 

I listened to the line click-clicking as it connected, then put the rolls of cash back into the desk drawer we’d taken them from. Then I removed a couple and stuck them in my pockets: where we were going, a wad of cash was sure to come in useful.  
I listened as the phone started to ring; I tried to gather my thoughts to figure out what I was going to say.  
Ice-cold intent. Sense of focus. Iron purpose. 

I was Magdalena Maria Kennick, I was the progeny of a long line of vampire killers, and no one, King or not, was going to take the Northman.


	34. XXXIV

Maybe to make up for showing her weakness, Pamela wasted no time being extra bitchy and especially mean to her little vampire sister. I could hear her stomping around in her heels on Eric’s wooden floors, snapping at Willa. Now that she had a minion to boss around, order was restored in Pam’s world and she was enjoying it.

Just as I was about to press the disconnect button on the King of the Islands’ number, a soft voice said, _“Oui?”_  
“Is this Pierre Sauvant?” I said and quickly corrected myself. “I would very much like to speak to his Highness, King Pierre.”  
“It is I,” said the quiet voice. “You are?”  
“Magdalena Kennick, I’m…”  
“.. . the consort of Sheriff Northman,” he finished. “I am sorry to hear of his arrest.”

How on _earth_ did he know already?  
“It is not legal,” I said quickly, trying to remember what my grandfather had told me. “He was taken illegally, according to the fourth amendment of the 1947 Agreement.” It came out fast, the words tripping over my tongue. “He has done no wrong, not by old law or new.”  
“I see,” said the King.

“Will he have your support?” I asked.  
There was a desperate tone to my voice, my palms were sweating.  
The King said nothing.  
I swapped the receiver to the other ear and wiped the palm of my hand on my skirt.  
“Get him to the summit and he will have my support,” he said.  
And without another word he hung up.

Pam stuck her head around the door.  
“I’ve booked us a private plane. The Anubis guys are coming by in an hour to pick up the coffins, the flight leaves at ten. Did you contact the King?”  
“He’s in,” I said, swooping up my purse and my phone. “If we get Eric back to New Orleans, he’ll support him as planned.”

At that moment my phone rang and I glanced at its screen. I didn’t recognize the number so I hesitated before I accepted the call.  
“Maggie?”  
“Empress?” I said.  
Pam’s ears pricked up; she came in and shut the door behind her. Clearly Willa took this as a signal that something interesting was going on because she immediately opened it and followed her inside. They stood opposite the desk, staring at me expectantly. 

“Yes, it’s me,” she said. “ Don’t worry, it’s safe, no one knows I’m here. I sneaked out and bought a new mobile phone. I’m in a coffee shop near our hotel.” She sounded almost proud of herself. “They have a mermaid in their logo, so it might be a seafarers’ place. They are open all night long, too.”

Hmm.  
I don’t know when I last saw a sailor at Starbucks, but the Empress seemed happy enough with the idea. I could just imagine her sitting gingerly at a little table in the pre-dawn darkness, surrounded by early-morning commuters and insomniac seniors.

“It’s nice to hear from you,” I said, but I wasn’t sure that it was.  
“Eric Northman has been arrested on suspicion of treason,” she stated.  
“Good news travels fast,” I said grimly.  
Honestly, _vampires_.  
“You will go and get him back,” she said. “Bring him back to New Orleans and let him make his suit against Catherine.”  
“Is that an order?” I asked archly.  
“Yes,” she said. To her mind it was simple.  
“I’ll do my best.”  
“You’ll need a lawyer,” she said. “I shall send Sonya. She will know what to do.”

“Empress,” I said in a low tone, turning my back on the two vampires, “You know that it would be in your very best interests to have Northman on the throne in Louisiana. Please, please, help me in any way you can.”  
She was silent.  
“Any string you can pull, any favour you can call in,” I continued. “Please.”  
I felt desperate.  
“Please,” I whispered.  
“This is not just political then?” she asked. “Is it also personal?”  
I felt a tear roll down my cheek.  
“Yes,” I said. “Please, please help me.”  
… … … 

I didn’t sleep on the plane. I sat upright, staring out the window, clutching the piece of paper that had King David’s address on it. 

I got to the hotel and drank coffee till sundown, when the lids were flung open and Eric’s progeny awoke. True to her word, the empress sent Sonya van Helsaig and she arrived swinging her briefcase, her mouth set in a grim line that only relaxed to give me a smile when we hugged on her arrival.

I made the necessary introductions, and saying little, the four of us too a taxi to his address and marched in, pushing straight past security men and heading directly for the reception.  
The king’s seat was in a sleek and modern glass-fronted building that spoke of discreet wealth and taste. The reception was in well-lit foyer with beige rugs and beige leather sofas, like the reception area of a fancy bank or investment office. Pam and Sonya barely paid it any notice, but Willa looked around in wonder.  
“It’s like a museum of modern art,” she whispered, nodding at the odd sculptures placed artfully by the windows.

I held it in till I approached the desk, then the energy brimmed over and I felt it slip through my fingers, an angry vibration that created discord in the atmosphere. The vampires that had, just minutes ago, been sitting around in their beige leather chairs reading magazines about investment opportunities in Asia all looked up, fangs extended. I turned slowly to face them, sending waves of my rage towards them.  
“Don’t think about it,” I hissed at one who’d stood up expectantly.  
The receptionist came around to our side of the desk and reached out to touch my sleeve but her hand stopped short. Her smile froze when I whipped around to face her.  
“Ms Kennick? Thank you for phoning ahead. The audience has been granted and they’re waiting for you. Would your associates like to wait here?”  
“No,” I snapped. “They’re coming with me.”  
She indicated the door and I pushed it open, followed by the others.

There were six vampires in the room – eight, counting my two.  
I knew instantly who the boss was, although they were seated around a round table in a poor attempt at democracy. Vampires love a pecking order and even in a horizontal hierarchy there’ll always be one a tiny bit more vertical than the others. The table was on a large round dais in the middle of a large room with darkened windows down one side, through which the lights of downtown Austin could be faintly seen. There were more beige leather couches and pots with carefully pruned plants. The lighting in the room was dim, except for a few ceiling spots over the table that illuminated the pale faces of the half dozen below. 

The vampires watched me enter, and as they all had papers and pens in front of them, I surmised that I had interrupted some kind of meeting. The head vampire had been turned in his mid-forties. He stood when I entered and casually walked down the steps from the dais to stand and wait for us to approach. I couldn’t gauge how old he was, but he was wearing a crisp navy suit with a white shirt. No tie, top button open. Formal but quirky – “Hey, I might be a successful businessman, but I’m cool! I’m down with the kids!”  
Yeah, I knew the type: a shithead.

“David DeMarco, King of Texas,” he said. “Welcome, Ms Kennick. A pleasure and an honour.”  
He didn’t extend a hand: most vampires will not voluntarily touch a human in this way. That was fine by me, I wasn’t inclined to offer him a handshake either.  
One by one, the other five stood and introduced themselves. I could place three of them as progeny of vampires I knew of or had met but the other two were unknown to me: one was Asian and the other black, which meant that they might have come from territory beyond the Book of the Undead. 

“How can we be of assistance to you?” the King asked smoothly.  
At that instant, I knew that he knew why I was there and he was trying to engage me in the beloved vampire game of ‘let’s pretend’.  
“You have my vampire,” I said in a low voice. “And I want him back.”  
“Your vampire?” King David said in a tone of wonderment. “What vampire would that be? I wasn’t aware that we had _your_ vampire in our care, Ms Kennick.”  
“You are aware,” I said. 

The vampires at the table looked at each other, eyebrows raised. Definitely not playing the game, me.  
“It was announced at the reception of Empress Moya in New Orleans,” I said. “I’m pretty certain you were there.”  
“Oh, that little encounter,” he smirked. “That was your official announcement? Oh, dear. Sad days for the Five Families. This kind of thing used to have such a sense of … _ceremony_.”

I stared at him through slitted eyes.  
“And you have reason to believe we have your companion?” he asked smoothly. “What’s his name again, this vampire of yours?”  
“I know you have him. His name is Eric Northman and I was there when your men took him.”  
“Northman.”  
He turned to his companions at the table.  
“Is the vampire in custody called Northman?” he said, feigning innocence. Or pretending to be stupid. One way or another, he was doing it deliberately to piss me off.

The only woman among them looked at her notes and said, “Yes, he goes by the name of Northman but he’s also been known as Magnusson. He’s the progeny of the old one, Godric, of the Norse line.”  
“Well, well, well, we seem to have your companion after all,” David said with a genial smile. “He’s the one we had to take in for attempted treason, as I recall. Do you know anything about this?”  
“No,” I said. “I know nothing about attempted treason because he didn’t attempt treason.”  
“Maggie,” Sonia spoke up in a warning tone. 

She approached the King with a polite smile.  
“I am Sonja van Helsaig,” she said. “Of the Five Families and also the special envoy to the summit on vampire legal matters. We have reason to believe that your arrest had no basis in law.”  
King David made a sceptical face, almost theatrical in its cynicism.  
“Hmm,” he said again. “A Helsaig and a Kennick. What an honour for sure.”

“We want to see him,” Pam said, unable to hold it in. “Before this goes any further, I insist that we see him.”  
“Yes,” I said firmly. “We want to see him.”  
Mr DeMarco made a _hmm_ ing noise and I felt the rage rise again.  
Sonja interjected smoothly, “It is their right to see him.”

King David smiled tightly and said, “Mr Northman mightn’t be in the best ... shape for visitors. We’ve had a very vigorous interrogation session.”  
Behind me, Willa made a tiny noise but I pressed my lips together and stared him down. I knew what that meant and it wasn’t good.  
“Will we go to him or will you have him brought here?” I asked.

The King sighed a theatrical sigh and crooked a finger again. The female vampire stood up and left the room.  
“Can I get you anything?” he said, conversationally.  
“My vampire,” I shot back.  
“Of course, Ms Kennick, on his way. I meant: a juice. Or a mineral water, perhaps? Something sparkling, aside from the conversation?”  
“No, thank you,” I said. 

He continued to smile at me, so I moved out of the line of his gaze and prowled around the room. I was aware that all of the vampires were watching me, so I used the opportunity to terrorize their plants, plucking off the dead leaves on a ficus and leaving them in a defiant little heap on the carpet. I pretended to admire one of the heavy oil paintings on the wall until I heard the hum of the elevator. I returned to stand in front of King David, planting my feet firmly on the oriental carpet that ran from the door to the steps of the dais. 

When the door opened, I didn’t look around. I didn’t have to, I could feel Eric’s presence but it felt odd, somehow off.  
Behind me, Pamela gave a little sob.  
Dear God, I thought. I was afraid to turn around, terrified of what I would see. 

The King looked over my shoulder and tut-tutted with a pained expression on his face.  
“The _rug_ ,” he said to whoever was behind me.  
I continued to stare at him.  
The vampires on the dais behind him were shuffling their papers, looking elsewhere.  
“Well,” he said, in exasperation. “Is that your vampire or not?”

I turned slowly, expecting the worst. Pamela was silent but her face was streaked with bloody tears, Willa had turned away, her face in her hands.  
Sonja looked at me and shook her head.  
Two men stood to the right of the door, dressed in black combat pants and black t-shirts. Between them, they half-held, half-supported a fair-haired man whose face I couldn’t see, but I didn’t need to see it to know it was Eric. 

The t-shirt he’d been wearing was flittered, it had been lashed from his body, and his jeans hung loosely from his waist because they’d taken his belt. There was a dark lump of clotted hair on the back of his head. One of the guards held him under the arm to stop him from sinking to his knees, but his other arm was free – and no wonder: his shoulder hung at an awkward angle and it looked dislocated.

“You have visitors, Mr Northman,” the King said pleasantly, as though we were at a social event.  
Eric raised his face reluctantly.  
One eye was swollen shut and there were two trails of blood coming from his mouth. He looked at the women and me, but his face was so swollen and disfigured that I couldn’t read any expression. But he moved his head a tiny bit, a tiny movement of warning, raising his chin to signal that I was to buck up.

I spun around to Mr DeMarco, my core shaken.  
“Was this really necessary?” I asked. “ _Really_?”  
“Why, yes,” he said in mock surprise. “We have zero tolerance for vampire crime here in Texas. I don’t know what you guys let your vampires away with, but here in Texas we run a tight ship.”  
“This is unacceptable by the laws of the new Charter,” Sonja said firmly.  
“Good job we haven’t passed it yet then, isn’t it?” David countered icily. “See how effective my methods are?”

I felt Pam move before she actually did; or rather: I felt her intent and I grabbed her arm in warning.  
“Bastard,” she hissed, pouncing forward. “I will – ”  
The woman vampire on the dais shrieked and total chaos broke out.  
I clung to Pamela, trying to pull her back. Willa, sensing what Pam was about to do, moved forward to grab her, too, digging her heels into the carpet as she yanked an arm. Eric said something, tried to say something, the King shouted for help and the doors burst open. Three more armed men stomped in and surrounded us quickly, their weapons trained at our heads.

“No, Pam,” I said stiffly. “Not another word.”  
That’s all I needed, another vampire threatening to kill a sovereign. She fell silent, wiping a bloody hand across her even bloodier cheek.

The large room suddenly seemed rather small. We stood facing one another, not sure what to do next.  
King David, the host with the most, cleared his throat to say something but he didn’t get the words out: the receptionist appeared in the doorway and squeaked, “Your Highness, you have company, sir.”  
“Who is it?” David asked irritably. “I’m busy, can’t you see?”  
“It’s a Mr Seán Kennick,” she said timidly. “And he’s here with the Vampire James Sutton.”

I whirled around in shock.  
In the doorway stood a tall black man, flanked on either side by people in suits. I strained to see who was behind them but I didn’t need to peer for long. The tall man stood aside and my grandfather stepped forward.

“ _Salve_ ,” he said in traditional greeting.  
He grinned at us all pleasantly and whacked the floor with the silver tip of his walking cane.  
I recognised it: he had used it to stake seven vampires back in the days when that what the Five Families did. I knew this because when I was a child, I counted the notches on its side and rubbed the smooth spot my grandfather had left for number eight.  
And right now he was looking around the room as though he were trying to decide who would earn that notch.


	35. XXXV

"Is that really James Sutton?" Sonja whispered eagerly. "Like, _the_ James Sutton?!  
I shrugged: no idea. I'd only heard of James Sutton for the first time the previous night and, to my great shame, I'd immediately pictured him as an overweight old white man.  
Instead he was of African origin, as dark as I was fair, as tall as Eric, but more powerfully built, with a booming voice that filled the room.

"James Sutton," he said, nodding at the assembled vampires who had, in the meantime, all stood up, confused and flustered by the turn of events.  
"My associates," he added and gave a broad wave of his hand to indicate the five other vampires who were standing behind him, already looking around for places to set up their laptops.  
King David made a gesture to the guards holding Eric up and without even a glance in my direction, they hauled him off. I started to follow him but my grandfather's bony hand held me back.  
"May I ask – ?" David DeMarco begin but Mr Sutton cut him off with his loud voice.  
"I am here to represent Miss Kennick," he announced. "I have been given to understand that you've taken Miss Kennick's vampire?"  
"Miss Kennick's vampire," King David said, "is a traitor. He was planning to overthrow the rightful and legitimate ruler of Louisiana, Queen Catherine."  
"And have you proof of this?" Sutton boomed. "Aside from the fact that no crime has been committed on your territory, do you have proof that a crime was committed in Louisiana?"

I looked over at Sonja; her face was rapt. This was like a dream come true: internal vampire politics in action. The next thing that would happen was that they would start referring to some musty old Charter or Agreement or Amendment - blah, blah, blah -  
James Sutton must have heard my thoughts.

"And may I remind you," he began dramatically, turning to look at me and Sonja (she nearly swooned), "that the Americas have no formal constitution per se and are operating under a ratified version of the constitutional Charter of the 1947 summit, formalised by the Old Emperor Charles, and you are thus subject to its laws and bylaws, including the provision of peerage for the Five Families?"  
At all of this legalese, Sonja quivered.  
I just looked from Mr Sutton to King David, back and forth, waiting to see who would flinch first.  
"This is not relevant at this point in time," De Marco said snootily.  
"I beg to DIFFER!" Mr Sutton shouted. "It is ENTIRELY relevant. Mr Corcoran: the Constitution, if you please!"  
One of the Sutton team rushed forward with an iPad and Mr Sutton started scrolling. It would've been a lot more dramatic if it had been a parchment, a roll of vellum, but he made up for it by scrolling with the very tip of his long and tapered fingers, as though flicking through the pages of a book.

I turned and nodded at Pamela. She and I walked towards the door as quietly as we could, but we were followed by King David's female companion, who scuttled out into the waiting area behind us.  
"Can I help you?" she asked. "I am Isadora Carlos, King David's deputy."  
"We're going to see Mr Northman," I stated.  
I didn't feel like making it a question or request.  
She paused, hesitant. The vampire behind the reception desk studiously looked away.  
"Very well, then," she said reluctantly. "I'm sure he'll be called up to testify soon anyway. It might be best if he were ... tidied up a little."  
Pam stiffened in rage beside me and I grabbed her arm to calm her down.

We marched through the lobby, Isadora walked in front of us with long strides. The waiting vampires made no attempt to be discreet: they were positively agog. In the elevator Isadora straightened up and smiled at us, a stiff, polite smile and then cleared her throat.  
"David has worked very hard to restore order in Texas. For a long time it was the state with the biggest vampire population and the highest level of vampire crime. He has worked _wonders_ turning things around."  
Her soft, southern voice had a note of pleading to it. She wasn't apologising exactly but I could tell she was hoping we'd soften a little.  
Fat chance.  
The image of Eric's bloody mouth made me jittery and sick. And Pam's silence was palpable.  
"It was unnecessary," I repeated. "Where I come from, we don't resort to this level of violence."  
"We don't resort to it where _I_ come from," Pamela hissed. "You know: across the border in Louisiana."

Isadora, who looked like a fussed elementary school teacher, gnawed her lip and didn't reply. She pressed the elevator button again, probably in the hope that would make it go faster. Luckily for her, the it came to a stop and no further discussion of DeMarco's interrogation techniques were necessary. The elevator descended smoothly and we stepped out into a long, brightly-lit corridor. There were six cells: the three on the right had bars of silver, the ones on the right had steel bars.  
_For humans,_ I realised. _But what were the Texan vampires doing with human prisoners?_  
We walked down the short corridor to the last cell. Eric sat on the floor, his back against the wall. There was nothing else in the cell except a wooden bed frame with a thin mattress.

Isadora tsk-tsked, fished a key out of her pocket and opened the cell door.  
"Why are you sitting on the floor, Mr Northman?" she said as though his sitting slumped on the floor was a source of embarrassment to her, as though he'd done it on purpose to be wilful or stubborn.  
She and Pamela lifted his tall frame and gently put him on the bed. He looked up at me and mumbled something through his bloody mouth.  
He'd been de-fanged: I clamped a hand over my own mouth to stop a cry.  
He mumbled again: "Thank you."

Pamela moved in and began to feel his hands, his arms, ascertaining his level of injury.  
I stepped closer, afraid to touch him. Apart from his swollen face, he'd been whipped and he was wearing something around his neck.  
I stepped closer to look: a silver collar.  
"Get it off," I cried and pulled at it.  
He winced and Pamela scolded me, an angry hiss. I felt for the clasp and removed it, throwing it on the floor with a clatter.  
Isadora had the good grace to look shameful. Eric turned his face away from me and I knew he was ashamed of his missing fangs. It was the worst punishment you could inflict on a vampire: it rendered them powerless, emasculated them.

I looked at the back of his head instead: what had appeared to be a wound was just a patch of matted blood, possibly from his mouth. I touched it gingerly and he turned his face even further from me.  
I felt like crying.  
"One, two, three – " Pam said and just when I realised she was counting, she popped Eric's arm back into its socket.  
He groaned.  
"You need blood," I said. "He probably hasn't been fed, right?"  
Vampires heal much, much faster than humans but it doesn't mean they don't feel pain. A beaten face and a whipped back is no less painful for them than it is for us, it's just not as painful for as long – but without sustenance, healing takes longer.  
"I don't know," Isadora said stiffly. "Probably not."

Without looking at me, Pam snapped her fingers. When I didn't react, she whipped around and said,  
"Maggie, your blood!"  
"How?" I whispered, embarrassed.  
Eric looked away. Pam rolled her eyes, grabbed my arm and pulled me in. With no ceremony and no warning, she dug her fangs into my neck, then plopped me down on the thin mattress next to Eric.  
"Drink," she said to him. " _Bleed,_ " she commanded me.  
He moved closer and started to suck my neck. It hurt more than it ever had before and tears of pain started in my eyes. I was glad Pam was searching her handbag so I could blink them away without being seen.

Pamela produced a little packet of wet wipes, took one and handed the packet to me. I hesitated before I took them, but something in her eyes told me to get on with it. I pulled one out then dabbed very gently at the wound on Eric's cheek that had caused the eye to swell shut. In the meantime, he took one and slowly wiped the blood on his chin. As he did, he instinctively turned from me again, as though he were trying to hide his mouth, his shame.  
That upset me more than anything else: in the past, vampires had punished the wayward few by de-fanging them, but it was a custom that had fallen into disapproval. In an enlightened age, it was like putting a human into the stocks or nailing an ear to a post, just much, much more brutal ... but apparently King DeMarco liked it Old School.

Eric finished feeding, patting my back gently. I used a wipe to clean the wound on my neck. He stood up and moved his arm carefully.  
"Good as new," he pronounced grimly.  
Pam grinned at him – he was acting a little like the old Eric.  
Isadora, who was leaning against the wall of the cell, cleared her throat and said, "I'm sure Mr Sutton will like to see Mr Northman again, so maybe you'd like to wait here till you're called. You know, we feel it is in everyone's best interests to clear this matter up in a transparent manner."  
Translated, it meant that she and her buddies had realised that they had picked the wrong vampire to torture.  
This one was connected. This one had friends in high places.  
This one had ... a legal team.

She left the cell, leaving the door demonstratively open.  
Eric waited till she had left. "Do you have weapons?" he asked Pam urgently.  
"Yes," she scoffed. " _Lawyers._ "  
"Are you serious?" he asked incredulously.  
"Didn't you notice? Lawyers and her granddaddy," she elaborated, nodding derisively at me. "Welcome to the New World Order, Eric, this is what happens when we have _laws._ "  
She spat the last word out in disgust.

He turned to me.  
"They have no proof that I ever conspired to dethrone Catherine," he said. "You've spent a lot of time with me – did you ever hear me say that I wanted the throne of Louisiana?"  
"No," I said uneasily, remembering the meeting with the King of the Islands and his mom, the strange colonial-style bar with all of the pledges of loyalty – but, no, he was right.  
No one had ever actually _said_ it.  
"See?" he said. "No proof, the Kennick is my witness."  
He moved his head from side to side and gingerly touched a bruise on his cheek. Already it was turning the yellow of an old pear, healing fast with my blood.

The door of the basement opened and Isadora appeared again, this time with an armed escort.  
"You are requested," she said stiffly.  
She handed Eric back his watch, belt, shoes and a folded t-shirt. He took the remains of his shirt off and I turned away, nauseated by the welts on his back. Eric walked in front of Pam and me, trying not to limp. When I glanced at Pam her face was set and unreadable. I tried to make my face look the same.

There was a short hearing in King David's conference room.  
I was made to swear on the _Book of the Undead_ that Eric Northman was, indeed, my blood-sworn vampire (hissed intake of breath from my grandfather) and that at no point had he ever mentioned plans to take over the queendom of Louisiana.  
King David's telepath confirmed that I was not lying, Mr Sutton pretended to be affronted at the idea that a member of the Five Families could ever lie, I tried to look innocent and inoffensive. 

Eric, now looking much pinker and less battered, testified that I was his blood-sworn human and that he had never expressed a desire to become king of Louisiana -  
"But you _thought_ it," David snapped. "I'm quite sure you thought it."  
"Well," said my grandfather in his jolliest of voices, "if you were to put someone on trial for the things they thought to do, there wouldn't be a person in this room not guilty of murder."  
And he smiled a broad smile, showing his new dentures, and fingered the ridges on his walking cane.  
King David was silent.  
"I would never presume to make a move on the Louisiana throne," Eric said smoothly, "Unless rightfully voted for by the vampires of the state."  
He smiled a closed-mouth smile to hide his missing fangs.

"There we have it," Mr Sutton said. "As far as I and my legal team can see, this case is effectively closed. There is no evidence to prove Mr Northman intended Queen Catherine any ill-intent and no reason for King David to get involved in a matter outside of his territory, except as a display of friendship towards the Queen – am I right?"  
He turned to David, nodding jovially.  
The Texan king, feeling out-manoeuvred, sulked.  
"And as the Five Families and their vampires are assigned special status in the European imperial territories, Miss Kennick is free to take her vampire back if she feels he has been unlawfully held."  
"He has," I said firmly.  
"Awesome," said Mr Sutton, handing his iPad back to his waiting associate.

He turned to the Texan vampires and, bowing slightly, tapped the unbeating pulse of his left wrist in the usual gesture of vampire subservience, but in a way that was practically disdainful.  
He shook my grandfather's hand, then Sonja's (she blushed) and then mine. It was a vigorous shake: one pump, then two, then he dropped my hand like a lump of silver.  
He clicked his fingers and his crew hurriedly gathered up their papers and electronic devices, then he strode out of the room, pausing only before Eric to look him up and down.  
"Good luck in your future endeavours," he said, a hint of a smile around his lips. "I'll send you my bill."  
Eric nodded in agreement.

"There we go," said my grandfather to those remaining in the room after the Sutton whirlwind had left. "We'd better head on, I have an early flight."  
He said it with all of the ease of someone invited over for coffee and cake.  
Pamela marched out, Willa and Sonja in tow. My grandfather hooked his hand in my arm and we made for the door. 

Eric walked up to King David and bowed his head a little, so he was looking into his eyes.  
"You had better hope I never become King of Louisiana," he said pleasantly. "Because if I ever do, I'll be coming for you."  
With that, he walked out and we scurried after him.

... ... ...

"No," said my grandfather. "There'll be none of that, now. She's married."  
We were standing at Eric's hotel room door and he'd opened it to let me go in. In fact, I was just turning to say goodbye to my grandfather when he yanked me back and smacked me on the back of the hand with his cane.  
"To someone _else,_ " he said, in case Eric didn't understand.  
"We're getting divorced," I said, blushing furiously.  
"And when you are divorced you can get up to all kinds of jiggery-pokery with this fella but not before," he snapped and led me away down the hall.  
I looked back over my shoulder at Eric, whose mouth was slightly open in astonishment. I shrugged, helplessly.

My grandfather made me take the couch while he settled into the huge bed.  
I wasn't tired, which was probably a good thing because I had to hear about how he'd taken a taxi out to Dublin airport and flown first-class to Austin on the Empress' ticket. He'd sat beside some comedian from the telly who was not funny, and the flight attendants had given him a beer. 

I struggled to stay awake till he finally nodded off, but as soon as I did I flew down the corridor to Eric's room. To my disappointment, he was not alone.  
And to Pam's disappointment, I hadn't stayed with my grandfather.

"Will one of you please tell me what the fuck just happened?" I spat. "Are you really planning to take Catherine's throne?"  
"Of course not!" Eric said, while nodding vigorously.  
I was confused. 

He and Pamela pointed at the ceiling, the walls. Aha, bugged again.  
Damn those vampires and their penchant for eavesdropping.  
"I would never dream of overthrowing Catherine," he said smoothly, while he and Pam nodded again.  
Eric pulled the notepad off the desk and scrawled.  
_I'm going to take her down_

"I have always been her loyal subject," he continued, his pen scratching across the paper.  
He held the pad up.  
_Have the support of the majority of Louisiana sheriffs, will take the throne by legal means at the summit_  
"I wouldn't dream of challenging her authority," he finished.  
Scratch, scratch, scratch went the pen.  
_If that doesn't work, will stake her and claim throne as my own. Have a Kennick as my consort, so have support of your Empress. One way or another, I'll get it._

I turned to Pamela and she raised an eyebrow, giving me a smug little smile. I grabbed the notepad out of Eric's hands and wrote,  
_Is this what this has been about all along? Have you just been using me to get your fucking throne?_  
I was so upset, my hands shook and I had difficult forming the letters.  
Eric shook his head. _No, no._  
Pamela stood up.  
"In a manner of speaking he has," she said out loud, disregarding any ears that might be listening in. "What on earth did you think this was?"  
"You're a shithead," I said as Eric stood, a hand reaching out placatingly. "Stay away from me or I'll use my grandfather's fucking cane to stake you myself."

I tried to slam the door but it was one of those stupid soft-close ones so it just silently whooshed closed. 

As I stomped down the corridor to my room I could hear Eric and Pam shouting in Swedish. The only word I understood was 'Sookie.' Or maybe it really was 'sucky' this time.  
One way or the other, I'd had enough of the whole damned mess, the entire state of Louisiana and anything to do with any creature that identified itself as undead.


	36. XXXVI

After a restless night on a narrow couch, I woke up to find my grandfather was gone. But I knew where: he was a man with a particular penchant for a breakfast buffet and, sure enough, I found him at a table in the restaurant with Sonja van Helsaig.

I was sick to my stomach, unable to face food, so I grabbed a coffee and sat down with them. They looked at me enquiringly.  
"Turns out Eric is planning to take over Louisiana," I whispered. "And he was using me as a pawn. _Vote for me and get a Kennick free! She's cosy with the European empress, we'll have more clout on the American council!_ "  
My grandfather looked at me, agog, and Sonja shrugged.  
"Of _course_ he did," he said. "It's about the only clever thing he did, that fella."  
"Quite right," Sonja said. "Catherine doesn't stand a chance. There are enough old vampires in Louisiana who'd be impressed by something like that."  
"Does it not bother either of you that he was _using_ me?" I hissed.  
They looked up from their breakfasts.  
"What did you think he was doing?" Sonja asked, genuinely surprised. "You surely don't think it was true love, or something, do you? I mean, he's a vampire, Mag."  
"Have we not told you time and time again that human-vampire relationships do not work?" said my grandfather. "Am I not blue in the face telling you that?"

In fairness, he had.  
Everyone in my family had. It was the way things were: nice to work for, the vampires. Interesting to work with. Symbiotic relationship? A wonderful business arrangement.  
But feelings? _Ugh_ , no.

"I know," I said, subdued. "But he didn't even tell me about his plans."  
"That's the only other clever thing he did," my grandfather said. "Or else you could've been up for treason as well."  
He cut a corner of one of his pancakes and pushed it towards me. I took it and nibbled it.  
" _I_ couldn't be arrested for treason, could I?" I asked.  
"No, no," said Sonja. "Not at all. But one dark night your car would go over the bridge and end up in the river. Oopsie! Should've had those brakes checked."  
"Or you'd get mugged on the way home from the supermarket, knifed in the chest by a thief who'd forget to steal your money. Dear me," added my grandfather. "What a pity."  
"Or you'd be found electrocuted in the bathtub. Silly you, trying to dry your hair while you're having a bath," Sonja said  
"Okay, I get the picture," I admitted weakly.  
Sonja said, "The Empress would like you back in New Orleans before the summit begins."  
"I'd prefer to just leave now and go back to Dublin with you," I said, turning to my grandfather. 

It was the most tempting option: packing my suitcase while Eric lay in his coffin, walk out the door of the hotel and on to a plane. Gone – no big emotional fights, no recriminations.  
Just memories of a few nice shags and a few pints of blood lighter.  
"Well, you can't," he said firmly. "For one, I'm staying on for this summit. I was there for the Second Council, so I might as well stay for this one as well. Me and Ardelean will be able to catch up. And secondly, you're not running away to hide from this. You gave Moya your word that you would represent the family at the summit, so that's what you'll do. Yourself and that great big Viking oaf will have to sort yourselves out, but you'll do it in private and not make a holy show of us in front of the rest of the community."

He applied himself with gusto to his pancakes. I turned to Sonja for support but she looked at my grandfather and nodded.  
"In that case," I said, "I should go back to Shreveport first and tie up my loose ends there."  
My grandfather looked at me, his eyes narrowed.  
"You probably should," he said. "Go on then, and we'll see you in New Orleans in a day or two."

... ... ...

The men from Anubis unloaded the coffins in Eric's living room. I gave them a tip and closed the front door.

The coffins were laid out side by side in front of the fireplace. It kind of creeped me out, so I went back to my preferred place, the kitchen, making myself a cup of tea and a sandwich to pass the time till sundown.  
And barely had the sun's rays dipped behind the horizon when I heard the noise of a lid being tossed aside and, seconds later, Eric appeared in the doorway of the kitchen.

We stared at each other, not sure what to say.  
"Thank you," he said finally. "For - for whatever you did."  
"You're welcome," I answered politely.

He pulled out a kitchen chair and sat opposite me. Under the table, his knees almost touched mine as he looked for a way to arrange his long legs so they wouldn't kick me.  
The bruising on his face had faded and the ring of red around his neck where the silver collar had been was much less livid. I tried not to look at his mouth or remember the bloody gaps where his fangs had been.  
He caught me staring and clicked out his fangs. They were nothing more than short, sharp stubs, but still - they were growing back.

"I didn't – " he began.  
And stopped.  
"Nothing that happened between us was ever – "  
He stopped again.  
I stared at him, aware that I was making him squirm. So I raised an eyebrow and watched him wince.  
"That was all real," he said finally. "I do like you, Maggie. You know that. You know we could be more than lovers. You must feel that between us."  
"More than that? Like ... Monarchs?" I supplied archly.

He reached over to grab my hand but I put it under the table. I wasn't going to be distracted by blood-bond electricity; I wanted to concentrate on the conversation.

"This was offered to me by a contingent of sheriffs who are unhappy with life under Catherine," he said. "I wasn't interested in taking it till you came along, then I realised how easy it would be to achieve it with you at my side. And the more I got to know you, the more I realised how well we could work together."  
"Very opportunistic," I remarked.

He ignored my snark.  
"I would be a loyal husband, Magdalena," he said. "I have always been a loyal husband – "  
I thought of the fourteen wedding bands in his secret drawer. A wave of sadness washed over me, thinking of all of those poor women down through the ages. Long gone, only their names etched on the inside of a gold ring to remember them by.

"You would be richer and more powerful than you could ever imagine," he said. "Is this not what everyone wants?"  
"Living a life in darkness?" I asked gently. "Dealing with vampire affairs every night, vampire politics, vampire diplomacy? Far from home; no family, no friends. A husband who will eventually grow to love me, if I'm lucky. One who can't sire children – "  
It was a low dig. Eric winced as though I'd delivered a blow.  
"- one who will watch me grow old and then bury me before he moves on to the next woman. No, it's _not_ what everyone wants, Eric. It's what _no one_ wants."  
"Shall I make you vampire, then?" he asked eagerly.  
I laughed – bizarre to laugh under the circumstances, but there it was.  
"No, thank you," I said. "I'll pass."

__

There was silence.  
"So that's it?" he said. "It's over?"  
It was, I realised. It was over.  
I nodded.  
"I will support your claim to the throne, but I'm not to be used as part of the deal. I've told you that I'm leaving for Dublin on the 26th, directly after the summit. So if you get the throne, it's on your own merit," I said firmly.

__

I stood up.  
"I'm going to pack my things and leave for New Orleans in the morning."  
Eric stood as well, so I extended my hand.

__

"Thank you for – well, thank you for the nice time. The mostly nice time. Excluding the, you know, the incident with kidnapping and torture," I said, trying to smile.  
He took my hand and pulled me in.  
"No," I said warningly. "It's better if you – "  
He wrapped me in his arms, pressing my face to his chest.  
I breathed in the smell of his t-shirt's wash powder, the fabric softener and underneath, when I concentrated, the salty sea and the faint whiff of sweet apples. He was already bending to kiss my hair, my neck and I was trying to push him away.

__

"One night," he was murmuring. "One night, give me one night."  
"No, I – "  
" _One_ ," he whispered, his fingers wriggling under my shirt, stroking the skin on my back, up to the strap of my bra. He tugged it, testing its resistance. "Please, Magdalena. _Please._ "  
I arched myself into him, even as I was saying, "This is just not a good idea, I think we need a clean break - "  
He lifted me so his groin was level with mine, then kissed me again, pressing his hardness against me, moving his hips in a motion that had become all-too-familiar to me.  
"Aw, Eric," I said, exasperated. "This is _stupid_."

__

" _Kom igen_ ," he said in Swedish. "Come on," he wheedled. "One night. Your blood, one last time."  
I could feel his phantom pulse, the thing I shouldn't feel in a vampire. It had been a few days since I'd had his blood, but his proximity was making a lot of things confusing and unclear.  
_Fuck it. One night? What was one night, in the grand scheme of things?_ I thought flippantly, but an undercurrent of thoughts was rushing through my consciousness like a river:  
_you wanted a clean break, this won't make it easier, get up and leave, go and pack your things, go go go -_  
But I ignored them.  
"Okay, fine. One last night," I agreed. 

__

Eric grinned, turned on his heel with my hand in his and left the kitchen at such speed that he almost dragged me behind him.  
When he opened the kitchen door, he slammed into Willa and Pam, causing them both to yelp.

__

"Go home," he said shortly. "To your own homes. As your maker, I command you to leave – now."  
"We're leaving," Willa said. "We just wanted to ... eh ... say goodbye to Maggie."  
"Bye," I said through the banisters, scurrying up the stairs behind Eric.  
"So glad you're friends again, Eric," Pam said slyly, as she opened the front door. "We do so hate to see you and Mommy fight."  
Eric rolled his eyes but we could hear her laughing as the door whooshed shut behind her.

__


	37. XXXVII

I lay beside Eric and felt his phantom pulse. His hand lazily stroked the top of my head. I didn't know what time it was, but I guessed it was after 4 a.m. I struggled to keep my eyes open.  
"Is there anything I could do or say to make you stay?" he asked into the silence.  
I considered the question carefully.  
"No," I said and, bizarrely, added, "no, thank you," as though he'd offered me sugar for my tea.  
He stretched and I felt the muscles of his chest move beneath my fingers.  
"I will miss you," I said.  
"I will miss you, too," he replied.  
"Will your blood wear off?"  
"Eventually," he said.  
"So until then, I'll ... feel you? Even across the ocean?"  
"Probably," he said.

It was the worst break up ever: a bruised heart plus a blood bond that would just have to wear off.  
Eventually.

"Dawn is coming," he whispered and pulled me close.  
His mouth found mine and we kissed again, his fingers raked my back gently to show me what he wanted, as if my hips didn't already know. I lay back and let him move over me, grabbing a hank of blond hair to pull his head down so I could hide my face in his neck. I had made the right decision, I was certain of that, but as he pushed inside me I couldn't help but doubt my own certainty.  
It made no sense at all.

Xxx

Eric stood at the door in the predawn gloom. A trickle of blood ran from his ear.  
"Get inside," I hissed.  
"I'll wait till you've left," he said.  
"I'm capable of waiting for a taxi on my own," I said, looking towards the eastern sky where the first faint rays of light were climbing the horizon. "Please, Eric, go inside."  
He hesitated and I bounded back up to the house to plant one more kiss on his cheek.  
"Go inside," I insisted and gave him a gentle shove, pulling the door shut before returning to the sidewalk.

It felt like I was the only living creature around: no birdsong, no insects, in the chill December air. The only thing I could hear was the sound of a rattling car coming around the bend in the road. Barely believing my eyes, I saw Sookie Stackhouse draw up at the curb.  
She rolled down her window.  
"Well?" she called. "You getting in?"  
I turned to look at the house but there was not even a twitch of the curtain to indicate that Eric was watching what was going on. Nonetheless, I made a "What the fuck?" face at the door before rolling my case to the trunk of Sookie's little car and, with great difficulty, shoving it in.

I got in on the passenger side.  
There was a little child strapped in a car seat, blond as her mother, sucking earnestly on a pink pacifier. She looked at me curiously.  
"Maggie, meet Adele. Adele, meet Maggie."  
The child removed her pacifier and said, "It's dark."  
"It is," I agreed.  
"I take it Eric didn't tell you I was coming to pick you up," she said curtly. 

The car tore off down the road of the gated community at a speed much higher than the demure 20 miles an hour demanded of its residents.  
"Eh, no," I said. "I asked him to book me a taxi."  
"Yeah," she said. "One thing you gotta learn about Eric is that he's a sneaky b-a-s-t-a-r-d."  
Like I didn't know that already.

"Why did he ask you to pick me up?" I asked.  
Sookie was looking straight ahead, not making eye contact with me, just checking on her daughter in the mirror.  
"So I could put in a good word for him – you know, persuade you to stay on here in Louisiana and be his queen."  
She injected a lot of disdain into that last word.  
"Why you?" I wondered.  
"He thinks we're friends," she said. "Dumb vampires don't understand the complexity of human relationships."

It nonetheless seemed a bit tactless to me, even for a vampire.  
Eric was smart, and all inability to understand the workings of the human female aside, even he would understand how weird it was to make me have this conversation with his ex-lover, what with all of their complicated history.  
"But why you?" I repeated. "You, you of all people seem to be last person who would want me to be with Eric Northman."  
"Why do you say that?" she snapped, momentarily taking her focus off the road and swinging around to look at me.  
"Because sometimes I think you still want him," I said.  
There, I said it.  
It hung in the air between us, like something that could be swatted, batted away.

"I don't," she said finally. "I told you that already."  
"You seem to have ... regret."  
"I have a lot of his blood," she said. "It could take years till everything ... fades away. You'll know what I mean."  
I said nothing.  
"I don't want him," she said resolutely. "But his blood has left something like a fingerprint on my heart. It takes time to get rid of it. Do you know what I mean?"  
"Yes," I admitted.  
I was not looking forward to living with the Viking's big bloody fingerprints all over my heart.

She indicated and the car swung dangerously to one side.  
"Wheeee!" cried Adele.  
"We're nearly at the car hire place," Sookie said, all business. "So I gotta pitch him to you. He's offering you a great opportunity. That's what he told me to tell you."  
"Whoa," I laughed, breaking the tension. "You're really selling it, girl!"  
Sookie smiled.  
"What can I say? There was a time I would've given anything to spend a lifetime at his side. Sure, it was a very short time, but nonetheless. I think of him as a friend, at the end of the day, and I think you should reconsider his offer. "

She pulled up outside the car hire office, a place with a single lit window and a lonely clerk inside.  
Sookie grabbed my arm.

"I can hear what you're thinking," she said. "I know how you feel. But he likes you and he will be loyal to you, we both know it – if you don't mind him snacking around, that is. He needs someone to control him and God knows, Pam will only egg him on for her own amusement because she doesn't like the political animal he's become. I'm afraid that without you, and without all the protection your fancy-schmanzy connections brings, he's a sitting duck in Louisiana."

I hadn't thought about it like that.  
"I know you hadn't thought about it like that," Sookie said.  
Damn, she was spooky.  
"I know I'm spooky," she continued, "but just listen to me: Eric Northman is my friend and I want him to be happy. More than that, though, I want him to be safe. So if that means you have to stick around and help him rule Louisiana, that's what you gotta do. Get me?"

She leaned over me and opened the door.  
"The handle sticks," she said but we both knew she was booting me out.  
"You're weird, Sookie Stackhouse," I said. I knew she could hear me think it, so it might as well be out in the open. "But I still kind of like you, nonetheless."  
She grinned back, a gappy grin, one of the rare smiles she gave me that had any real warmth.  
"Back atcha, Maggie Kennick," she said and I slammed the door shut.

The car pulled away and the little girl waved at me from the back seat.  
I waved back and went inside to get my car.


	38. XXXVIII

I found the hotel to which the remains of European delegation had de-camped.  
It was a pretty anonymous business hotel at the edge of New Orleans, close to a strip mall that housed the Empress' new favourite hang-out, a nondescript Starbucks that opened 24 hours a day to cater to the human and vampire population with hot coffee and warm synthetic blood. I fell into a narrow bed in a cheerless single room and slept soundly, till I was woken by a hammering at my door at midnight.

One of the Empress' guards was there, waiting to escort me to her equally cheerless but decidedly bigger room. He was sullen and unfriendly, unwilling to engage in any small-talk. I was hardly expecting cheers and jubilation on my return, but I discovered I was actually _persona non grata_.

No, that wasn't just a feeling I got, the Empress literally sat me down and told me that no one wanted me there. I was a burden on the entire European vampire community and threatened to unhinge the success of the international convention.

I won't lie: her frank words left me slightly winded.  
She must have taken my silence for incomprehension because she explained, "Northman has been - rightfully, as I understand it - accused of treason and acquitted by means of a diplomatic coup, spearheaded by your grandfather. This has embarrassed the King of Texas and further infuriated the Queen of Louisiana."  
I opened my mouth to protest but she held up a hand to silence me.  
"You've dumped him and Catherine will no doubt move to have him arrested in the coming days, so I can only hope he has had the good sense to flee the country. Has he?"  
This time she glared at me, looking for an answer.  
"I doubt it," I said weakly.

"A pity," she said. "She'll have to have him put to death before the convention or her queendom will be cast into doubt.  
I felt a chill around my heart.  
"James Sutton said there was no evidence of treason," I said. "How can she put him to death? That's illegal, isn't it? Even here?"  
The Empress smiled at me and smoothed back her hair.  
"She will try," she said. "I have no doubt about that. As for you, Magdalena, you need constant security and surveillance. Catherine is vindictive, so I'm quite certain you'll be on her list of ends to tidy up. If it weren't for your family's loyal service to the European vampiredom, I would simply let you walk into your own death."

I gulped.  
"We have one week till the convention," she continued. "So you will stay in your room all the time. I have work for you to do, so that will keep you busy. I will assign you a vampire companion and a daywalker to protect you and procure anything you need. Otherwise, you will not step foot outside the door."  
"Like a prisoner," I said, a touch bitterly.  
"A living prisoner," she reminded me.

I hesitated.  
"I'd rather not ... I'd rather not have Stephen Hofmann as my companion, please."  
My voice sounded a little shaky, even to me.  
The Empress looked at me sharply.  
"You obviously haven't heard," she said, dipping her head to the side.  
She looked like a little brown-eyed bird: sharp, quick movements as she assessed me, up and down.  
I shook my head.  
"Mr Hofmann has defected," she said coldly. "Well, that's not how he put it. Queen Catherine offered him a job in her retinue and he took it with alacrity, saying there were better opportunities for advancement."  
"Really?"

She looked down at her hands, her slim, manicured fingers. When she looked up, her face wore an expression of such sadness, I felt a pang in my own chest.  
"Which makes his killing of Ilaria all the more pointless, don't you think?"  
"You think he killed her?"  
"You don't?" she countered.  
"I... I hoped not," I stammered.  
"Stephen is a ladder-climber," the Empress said. "And sometimes the rungs of his ladder are bodies. When he approached me and asked to take over Ilaria's duties, I told him I didn't think he had the kind of qualities of leadership I wanted in my retinue. Two days later, he handed in his notice."  
"Eric Northman said more or less the same of him," I said. "About his ruthlessness, I mean."

The Empress nodded, shuffled some papers.  
I stood up to leave and gave a clumsy half-curtsey.  
"You will be sorry to see him dead, then?" she asked.  
My mouth dropped open.  
"I have been told that he has been de-fanged, so he doesn't stand much of a chance, especially now that you've left him," she said. "Your blood might have sped the process up, helped him recover before the Queen summons him down to New Orleans. But you've chosen to come back here, so ..."

I began to feel mildly irritated, to say the least.  
"Everyone keeps telling me that vampire-human relationships don't work," I snapped. "My family is telling me to leave him because he'll be my downfall, you're telling my that now I've left him, I'll be his downfall. This is putting me in an impossible situation."  
She shrugged.  
"It is an impossible situation," she said. "And the only one who can figure it out is you. However," she said, standing up, "you should know that whatever you choose to do, I will support you fully. I think Northman has a good chance of winning the coup - if you are willing to get behind him. It's an American fracas, so I can't get involved but you, Magdalena, you can." 

"Did you summon me to tell me this?" I demanded. "I'm just a little pawn in this sick theatre of vampire politics, aren't I?"  
The Empress laughed out loud.  
"Yes," she answered frankly, "yes, you are. I want Northman on the throne and I want you by his side. If I could stake Catherine myself, I would, but the most I can hope for is to see the Viking do it instead."  
She winked at me, an odd gesture coming from her.  
"If you like him at all, you might be his only hope of surviving what is to come," she said. "Think of it like this: you might be a pawn now, but you could become the queen. The queen, after all, is the strongest piece on the board, the one who can move in any direction."  
She nodded at me, trying to make me understand.  
"You can choose to be a queen," she said, "and you can choose to stop being a pawn."


	39. XXXIX

So that was it, then.  
Bind myself to the Northman or sit back and watch him be killed.  
I was lodged firmly between a rock and a hard place, with little very wriggle-room.

I left the Empress' room and took my phone out of my pocket, looking at my pale face reflected in its black mirror.  
I sighed and unlocked it, tapping my contacts list till I found Eric's number.  
He answered on the first ring. 

"It's me," I said, unnecessarily.  
"I know," he replied, equally unnecessarily.  
I heard a hiss of background noise, recognised it immediately.  
"Are you in your car?"  
"Yes," he said shortly. "Pam and I have been summoned to New Orleans. We have to be there at sundown tomorrow night for a ... what did she call it, Pam?"  
"Disciplinary hearing," she said, her voice a little fainter.

Whatever little wriggle-room I had suddenly vanished. There was no time for dithering, I had to make my decision.  
"I will stand by you," I said quickly. "I will support your suit for king and I will be your consort."  
"Magdalena - " Eric began and I could feel a surge of warmth in me as his blood rushed in pleasure, but I ignored it and interrupted him.  
"For a year," I said. "One year, Eric. That's all I can give you. We'll set you up as king in Louisiana, make sure you're placed firmly on your thrown. You'll pay me a salary - none of that allowance shit. No marriage, no symbiosis, just your ... your... "  
"Escort," Pam chimed in.  
" _Consort,_ " I corrected firmly. "Agreed?"  
There was silence.

"He's thinking about it," came Pam's voice over the phone. "Though God only knows why - say yes, Eric."  
"Magdalena," he said, "Are you aware of what this means? If Catherine kills me, your life will be ... will be... I can't guarantee that it will end well."  
"If I face her with you, at least there's a chance it _will_ end well," I snapped.  
I felt him smile: I don't know how that worked, I don't know how his blood could let me know the wry upturn of his mouth as he considered it, but it did.  
"Very well," he said. "I accept your terms."  
"Fine," I said. "You're going to stop here and go down for the day with us.Then you can discuss strategy with the Empress and Sonja, Sonja van Helsaig -she can advise you on the legal side of things. Oh, and Tomas Ardelean and my grandfather will get behind you if I ask them."  
I said that more confidently than I felt: the two vampire-killers would only get behind Northman if I threw myself on my knees in front of them, weeping and wailing. But if it came to that, I would do it.  
The die were cast: it was all or nothing now.  
I felt a curious surge of adrenalin, a kind of blood-lust, a battle-rage. Was that Eric's Viking blood or centuries of my own family's stabbing and staking? I couldn't tell.

"Excellent," Eric asked briskly "Where can I find you?" and I could imagine him tapping the car's navigation system, ready to enter the address of the hotel.  
My elation sank a bit.  
"We're on the edge of the city," I said. "Em, not too far from the port. 625 Harbour View."  
He tapped the address in and I winced, waiting for his response.  
"Sleepy-Boo Lodge?" he said, incredulously. "The Empress and her entourage are in a _Sleepy-Boo Lodge_?"  
"Yes," I said morosely. "And it's as shit as it sounds."  
"Well, fuck me," said Pam sardonically. "We're all doomed."

\- - -  
It was weird, but the short time I had been in Louisiana felt like an eternity. And, bizarrely, Eric Northman had been the only constant in it.  
When he walked into the lobby with his sloping walk, Pam striding beside him in her four-inch heels, I felt a wave of relief wash over me.  
He knew I was there, I knew he could sense me. He didn't bother looking around, just signed for his room. I took in his leather jacket, the long legs in black jeans and the scuffed boots he wore beneath them, but I could almost see the hairs standing on the back of his neck, knowing that I was watching him. 

When he had dealt with the receptionist - smiling but slightly flustered by the two tall vampires that had appeared in front of her - he turned slowly and looked around, finding me half-hidden behind an artificial rubber plant.  
"Come," he said. "You look exhausted."  
"I keep trying to get away from you," I complained, as his cold hand took mine and pulled me to his side. "But you're like the proverbial bad penny that keeps turning up."  
He said nothing, but grinned waving good-night to Pam, who turned left to go to her room.  
Eric kissed the top of my head.  
"It's your destiny," he murmured.  
"It's my density," I shot back. "But, God help me, here I am. Come on, you need to go to ground before you sizzle."  
He squeezed my hand and unlocked his door.

\- - -  
We rose just before sunrise.  
Before we went to the Empress' room, I ate. I was ravenous. I ate dinner and dessert. And then I had a second dessert, jittery with nerves.  
I had demanded to see Eric's fangs and he'd reluctantly clicked them down. They had grown, but they were nowhere near as long as they had been. Shiny and white, they looked as new and untested as they were. I braced myself and let him feed, then drank a bottle of apple juice and downed a couple of multi-vitamins in an attempt to counter the slight wooziness that remained.

When we knocked on the Empress' door, Sonja opened it and ushered us inside.  
The room was packed: all of her remaining entourage had come to see us off, vampire and human alike. The Empress sat on the only chair in the room, her head bowed so her face was covered by her dark hair, my grandfather and Tomas Ardelean were perched at the end of the bed. Eric walked in and the room seemed to shrink, as he towered taller than the others assembled there. I, on the other hand, scuttled in behind him and squeezed beside Pam.

"Northman," the Empress said. She looked up and her hair fell back, revealing her sombre expression.  
The atmosphere in the room changed.  
She stood up and walked over to him, her head barely level with his chest.  
"Northman," she repeated. "You will challenge Catherine."  
"Yes."  
And to my astonishment, he sank to his knees before the Empress and lowered his head. She placed her hand on his blond hair.  
"You will challenge her," she said. "In the old way. _Aut neca aut necare, daemon_ ."  
Pam nudged me.  
"Translation," she hissed.  
" _Kill or be killed_ ," I said softly, meeting my grandfather's eyes.  
Eric's head remained bent.  
" _Incepto ne desistam_ ," he replied soberly.  
I felt a catch in my throat.  
"He wishes not to shrink from his purpose," I whispered.  
Pam nodded and bent her head as the other vampires in the room – the ones that spoke Latin, at least – murmured, " _Incepto ne desistam_ ."  
"Go now," she said. "And survive as king, or not at all."

Eric stood and looked to Pam. She nodded in return. Some of the other vampires started getting ready to leave, clearly planning to go along for the fight. My grandfather and Tomas Ardelean rose slowly, stretching and yawning, as though they were heading out for an evening of entertainment - which, in fairness, to them they probably were.  
I grabbed his sleeve.  
"I'm coming, too," I said. "Aren't I?"  
He gently pushed me back.  
"I think you should probably stay," he said over his shoulder and pointed at my grandfather.  
"This is vampire business," my grandfather said.  
"He could be killed," I said, feeling helpless. "What if she stakes him? I thought I was supposed to go with him?"  
" _Aut neca aut necar,_ " my grandfather said. "That's the old way. This is probably the last time they'll settle territorial disputes this way," he said wistfully.

The room emptied, leaving only a handful of humans – me, my grandfather, Sonja, Ardelean, Silvia, the Empress's maidservant and a few other members of her entourage.  
"Maggie, please," my grandfather said, as I tried to push past. "This is no place for an unproven human. This is a vampire affair."  
"They will fight to death," said Tomas Ardelean suddenly in his broken English. "If she want to be his consort, she be with him when he die or be with him when he live. This is the old way."

Oh, _God_ .  
I didn't really want to be his consort but I also didn't want to see him die. What if Sookie was right, what if I was his human shield in the midst of this vampire coup? What if -  
I didn't get the chance to consider it any more. Tomas Ardelean lifted his cane and poked me with its silver tip.  
"What you say to this, Kennick?" he asked.  
"That I may not shrink my purpose," I said resolutely, echoing their Latin battle cry, and left the room at a run.


	40. XL

"Stay there," Eric said and he pointed to the door of the ballroom. "Pam," he added and jerked his head in my direction.  
Her reply was a mere hiss of disapproval, but she stood in front of me, almost hiding me from view.  
I understood: in case I needed a quick getaway, it was probably good to be as close to the door as possible.

The last time I'd been there, the ballroom had been full of vampires and humans in their best festive frocks and suits, a buzz of conversation, the gentle background music of the Queen's string quartet.  
Now it was silent: literally, dead silent.  
I was the only human in the room and the loud thump-thumping of my heart must have been audible to every pair of vampire ears. 

The Empress walked slowly to the front of the ballroom, ascended the dais. With reluctance, Catherine stepped down and stood on the floor in front of her.  
Eric stood at the front of a group of vampires, facing Queen Catherine, who had her own group behind her. His back was arched, his fangs extended as far as they could go, his pale face streaked with blue veins. He growled a low growl that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. He had never looked less human to me than he did at that moment and if the full gravity of being the consort of a creature of the undead had never fully occurred to me before, it certainly did then. I suppressed a shudder, a movement Pam must have felt, because she turned and glared at me with all the force of her icy blue eyes.

"The die have been cast," said Moya into the silence. "Mr Northman challenges the authority of your Queen. She wants it to be settled in the old way."  
" _Alea iacta est!_ " repeated a voice in Latin.  
I saw it was the portly vampire that had turned up in Shreveport with the King of the Islands. He appeared to be the MC of the evening because he took centre stage beside Moya and boomed, "Hear me, Your Majesty, hear me, Northman, hear me all vampires present: how do you call it?"

Eric snarled and Catherine spat at him in return. The King of the Islands stepped forward, with his easy-going walk and took his place behind Eric. He shook his dreads back off his face and dipped his head to the side, watching Catherine with his inscrutable expression. A second vampire, one I recognised as the King of New York, followed, hand in hand with the ancient child that ruled California. David DeMarco, king of Texas, placed himself behind Catherine, followed by the Queen of the Pacific States and the king of Oklahoma, all looking grim as death. One by one, many of the vampires in the room took sides, some moving with alacrity, others moving with shuffling feet and undisguised reluctance.

I kept tally, mentally noting numbers. As I called it, Eric was in the lead: New York and California were far more powerful and more populous. And the little girl who ruled the latter state was as old as Eric and, as the rumours went, one of the most ruthless vampires in the country.

Another vampire made to step of the dais but the MC held him back.  
"Ecuador, this is a regional matter," he said jovially. "The North Americans must figure this one out themselves. Any more?" he said, turning to the others. "Canada? Dakotas?"

The vampire governor of Canada shook his head. He was known to eschew violence of all kinds and was not going to have one last bloody blow-out before the signing of the charter. Dakotas – whom I had last seen when he'd had his fangs in my neck, back in that other lifetime when Moya was carting me around the country canvassing for votes – winked at me as he stepped in behind Eric. He looked positively jolly at the prospect of bloodshed, cracking the knuckles of his fingers with delight. A few more vampires took sides, but it quickly became apparent that Eric's side was larger.

"How do you call it?" the older gentleman called into the crowd assembled around the sides of the room.  
Some of the vampires declined to move, others took sides. To my mind, a lot of them had waited to see which side would be bigger and aligned themselves there – something I felt was confirmed when one or two vampires moved out from behind Catherine and moved silently across the room to join Eric's ranks. There was a sudden movement from behind the hulking king of Oklahoma and then suddenly Stephen stepped forward.  
Eric raised a hand.  
"Move not, vampire!" he called in a warning tone. "This time you stay on the side you chose first, serpent."  
Looking deeply unhappy, Stephen stepped back in behind Catherine. As he did so, his eyes met mine. I gave him my best look of disgust before I turned my back to focus on Eric.

"Last time: how do you call it?" the old man called one last time. 

I realised with a start that quite a few people in the room were staring at me, including Pam, who was glaring at me through slitted eyes. I looked to Moya for help and she made the tiniest move of her head.  
I stepped away from the door and walked across the silent room, aware of every breath I took and how darned loud I exhaled. With Pam at his right and New York at his left, I placed myself at Eric's back, with the Queen of California moving aside to let me stand directly behind him. Eric extended his left arm backwards, as though he wished to shield me, clicking his fingers at California. She stood closer to me, taking my warm fingers in her icy ones. She looked into my eyes and I into hers. She had been turned before she'd reached her teens, but her eyes were old. She knew what was coming.

The man on the dais counted, "One, two, three!" and there was a scream, an animal howl.  
A blur of colour as vampires moved forward.  
"Only her!" Eric roared.  
Something inside me jumped and jerked and I moved forward with the others. Bloodlust. Centuries of Kennicks, armed with stakes, banged somewhere inside me and I ran forward, fists balled, ready to find a target.  
But California pulled me aside.  
"No, not you," she said. "Northman will not have it. I will protect you."  
We heard a terrible scream and watched the King of New York rip out another vampire's eyes.  
"Only her," Eric's voice rang out.  
He had Queen Catherine in a stranglehold, trying to hold back the stake she was aiming at his neck. The other vampires were inflicting injuries on each other that would have killed a mortal: eye gouging, scratching, discounting limbs.  
"I have to help him," I said to California and loosened myself from her grip.  
I ran forward, darting between the writhing bodies, trying not to slip on the blood that had spilled on the shiny floor. Just before I reached Eric, I felt something loom above me and look up –

\- It was Stephen.  
My last thought, before he stuck his fangs in his neck, was, "He can fly!"  
Like Eric, Stephen could fly. Unlike Eric, Stephen had made sure that no one know would know, a little party trick, an ace up his sleeve.  
He was sucking hard at my neck and I began to feel quite faint.  
"The face at the window," I whispered.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Eric turn to look at me, still struggling to hold the Queen at bay. She was spitting blood, his face was covered in splatters of her red rage. Stephen continued to chomp down.  
"The face at the window," I repeated.  
Stephen stopped for a second.  
"What?" he asked me, straining to hear.  
"You were the face at the window," I said.  
I looked into his eyes and pulled the chain from around my neck, the one that held Eric's fang. Without hesitation, I stabbed him in the eye with it. He pulled back, howling with rage, and I jumped at him, using the tooth like a little stake, jabbing his neck, his cheek, anywhere the flesh was soft. He stumbled backwards, then tried to launch himself at me again, one hand covering his injured eye. California whooped and put herself between us, yelling when Stephen grabbed and yanked her arm out of its socket. I continued to claw him, insane with rage, leaving tiny pinpricks of blood on his face.

I heard a bloodcurdling roar and saw Eric pin the Empress down. Pamela grabbed a chair and whacked it forcefully off the floor till it splintered, then threw him one of its legs. I saw the improvised stake being raised in the air, then the entire room collectively paused and watched it slash down, once, twice. The Queen disintegrated, her blood spraying the dignitaries on the dais and the vampires locked in combat around. Almost instantly, the fighting ceased, except for Stephen, who knocked California aside with a vicious punch while she was momentarily distracted.

"I apologise for this," he said to me, "But now I have a chance to be king."  
He drew his upper lip back so I could see his fangs. I held up my arms to shield myself, closing my eyes.  
In a heartbeat – mine, the only heart working in that room - I felt myself splattered with something cold and when I opened my eyes, Eric stood before me, his face a mask of blood, his clothes dripping with the Queen's innards.  
"It is over," he said and raised his arm. In his fist he held Stephen Hofmann's head.

"The Queen is dead, long live the King!" the gentleman on the dais called.  
The vampires who fought for Eric stood, the others went down on one knee as an acknowledgement of his victory.  
"Deaths?" the vampire called.  
They looked around. The extent of the injuries were horrific – no doubt the former Queen's blood reserves would be sorely hit this night – but they were all still standing.  
"Jolly good," he said. "Well done. Good fight, good fight."  
The vampires who had excitedly watched the whole thing clapped politely. I felt slightly stunned by what had just happened, not least when I saw the king of New York pat the dejected Queen of the Pacific on the shoulder and tell her she fought well.

"Your new King, Louisiana!" said the older gentleman.  
Eric stood on the ground beside the dais, making them the same height. Pamela, bloody but beaming proudly stood by his side. He gestured that I come over, so I left the injured Californian child and stood between him and Pam.  
The MC raised his arm as though he'd one a boxing fight. Eric stood silently, with Pam and I behind him, as bloody vampire after bloody vampire came forward - some jubilantly, some downcast - and swore fealty to their new liege lord. I could feel blood dripping down my face, trickling down between my breasts.  
"My consort," Eric said, holding out a hand. "Magdalena Kennick, of the Five Families."  
Fingers shot to phantom pulses as they assembled vampires acknowledged my position. Moya beamed at them benevolently.  
"It is done," said the portly vampire. "The king will take over where Catherine left off. Attendants of Louisiana, be prepared to bring him up to speed tomorrow. We want a smooth transition and, above all, a fast transition."

All of the vampires in the room turned to look at Eric expectantly.  
"You are dismissed," he said and left the room, tugging me behind him, followed by Pam, who took care to flick bloody bits off her top as she passed members of the former Queen's entourage.

Then we left, a broken and bloody group that left red footprints in the carpeted hallway.  
Eric shoved the wooden doors to the lobby open and we were met with a wave of noise: cheers, gasps, cries. He grabbed my hand and we took the stairs as quickly as we could, the others scattering to their rooms. Eric hesitated for a minute, then continued up the stairs till we entered the corridor that housed the Queen's suite. When he pushed open the doors, her attendants looked up in horror and many of them started to cry.

"Get out!" he cried and they left, gathering up what they could.  
Eric waited till they were gone, then slammed the door behind them, locking it with a deadbolt. He turned to face me. He looked like a monster, his face bloodied and his fangs still extended, but then again, covered in Stephen's blood, so did I.

\- - - 

We sat in Catherine's enormous bathtub. Sorry, Eric's enormous bathtub.  
We had both had to shower twice just to sluice the blood and guts from our skin and hair. Now we were sitting up to our necks in soapy bubbles, not saying anything.  
"So it is done," he said finally.  
"All hail King Eric."  
"Then you're Queen."  
"I can't be Queen, I'm not vampire," I replied.  
He tipped me with a large foot, which I grabbed and tweaked his big toe in response  
"I'm King. If I say you're my Queen, that's what it will be."  
I shook my head. "That's not the way it works, Eric. Besides..."  
The word fell into silence.  
"Besides it's just for one year," he said.  
He stared at me, waiting for a reply.  
"One year," I said.   
"We'll see," he grinned and ducked under the soapy water before I could respond.

 _What had I got myself into?_ I wondered and shook my head ruefully, scattering bubbles as I did.


End file.
